Cold Skies, Keen Perils, Trampled Lives
by LJL
Summary: Harry Potter / Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel / Teen Wolf / The Secret Circle / Supernatural crossover. A magical world war is brewing, with Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter polarizing the two sides. How will Buffy and all the new Slayers play a part? Can demon hunters and supernatural creatures work together? Will two overlapping circles of teen witches in Maine tip the balance?
1. Part One, Chapter 1

Author's Note: Hello all and welcome!

First, a little explanation. This story is a crossover between Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Teen Wolf, Supernatural, and The Secret Circle. There might be a couple other shows and/or books that pop up in future chapters – I'll make sure to warn you about them in advance with the usual disclaimers – but for this first (rather large) chapter, you only have to worry about those knowing a thing or two about those properties.

Second, a little background. This story is in part a rewrite of one of my previous works, _Slayers and Sixth Years_. That story was only a crossover between Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel (since Teen Wolf, The Secret Circle and Supernatural hadn't happened yet). Since I'm throwing in stories from those three properties, this obviously isn't going to be a straight rewrite. It's going to rework the story and the characters a lot – and yes, all of these disparate storylines are eventually going to converge, so long as I do my job right.

Third, establishing timeline. I know that several of these properties – particularly Buffy and Harry Potter – have specific dates for everything that happens. Harry Potter takes place in the 1990s, whereas Buffy closes the Hellmouth in 2003; and of course Teen Wolf and The Secret Circle depict things like Facebook and smartphones, which didn't exist when the aforementioned two properties were taking place. I'm asking for a little more suspension of disbelief – let's pretend for a second that all of the things you're about to see are happening at the same time. In other words, here's where things pick up:

End of Buffy Season 7

End of Angel Season 4

End of _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

End of Supernatural Season 2

End of Teen Wolf Season 1

End of The Secret Circle Season 1

Fourth, about the OC. Yes, there's an OC who narrates his own section. You don't have to freak and go searching for "American Wizarding Academy" or "Craig" all over the Internet – you won't find anything. Craig and the AWA were elements from the original _Slayers and Sixth Years_, where they were original elements, too. I usually wouldn't preface the introduction of an OC this much, but since this story is bringing together so many different properties I didn't want anyone to think they were missing source material.

Fifth, the disclaimer. I do not, in any way, own Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Teen Wolf, Supernatural, or The Secret Circle, or any of the characters, locations, objects or concepts associated with any of those properties or protected by their copyrights. I do not, and will not, seek any form of financial gain from the writing of this story. It is for fun and fun alone.

Sixth – oh, screw it, enjoy the story.

* * *

PART ONE – THE SECRET WAR

CHAPTER ONE

"What now?"

_I think I could just about murder those words_, Buffy thought.

Sprawling before Buffy and her friends was the smoking crater that had once been their home, Sunnydale. "It looks like someone attacked it with a giant ice cream scoop," Buffy said, in lieu of answering the question.

"Mmm," Willow said. The witch's natural red hair had reasserted itself, but she was still wobbly on her feet, being supported by newly-risen Slayer Kennedy. "Giant ice cream. That sounds fitting."

"But here we are without spoons," Xander cut in. A fleck of blood had attached itself to his eye patch, but Buffy didn't feel like bringing it up just then. Taking stock of her own torn clothes there was not a little blood there, too, so it wasn't like she was qualified to play fashion police.

"Are we seriously having this conversation?" Giles asked, taking of his glasses to wipe them on his shirt

"Come on, you like a little ice cream now and then," Dawn threw in.

"You guys are such freaks," Faith said. Buffy turned to regard the other veteran Slayer. Faith was smiling, a bit of the post-fight rush Buffy recognized from years past shining on her face. _God I hate her_, Buffy thought. She smiled at Faith, totally sincere, and Faith's own smile widened. _God it's good to be alive_.

Buffy turned on her heel and walked back to the bus. The trance of looking at the crater broken, the rest of the group hobbled back over to the bus, too. Buffy swung the back door open and hopped up onto the edge of the bus.

"Right," she said. "Planning. Obviously we need a new base of operations."

"I don't know," Faith said, leaning with one hand against the side of the bus next to Buffy. "Crater's got pretty good sun exposure. I could work on my tan."

Buffy ignored this. "Giles?" she asked.

"Well, yes, you're correct," he said. "But I'm afraid I'm at a bit of a loss. The Council is gone, except for the few Watchers who survived the purge. There are a few places in England and Italy that might be safe, but the key word is 'might'. Nothing is certain now."

"That sounds kind of foreboding," Xander said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"We've just untipped the scales," Giles said. "In a very, very big way. Closing the Hellmouth and activating every potential Slayer in the world are major changes. There's no way to tell what kind of repercussions we're looking at."

"Way to sour the victory speech," Buffy muttered. Then she breathed out heavily again. "All right, Europe's uncertain. We've been over it with the girls to see if any of them had a fallback spot we could use and that was no-go. Any one have any other ideas? Family hunting lodges you'd forgotten to mention up until this point? I don't relish the idea of finding hotel rooms for everyone."

"What about Angel?" Dawn asked.

Everyone looked at her.

"Well, when he showed with the medallion, didn't he mention that he's running that law firm in LA now?"

"Angel as a lawyer," Xander said. "Can everyone just picture that for a second?"

"I don't see that we have many other options," Giles said. "And Wolfram and Hart's resources are said to be rather vast."

"Hold on a second," Willow said. She pushed off from Kennedy so that she could stand by herself. "Isn't Wolfram and Hart evil? I know I didn't spend a ton of time in LA but from everything Faith said..."

Everyone turned to Faith. "They're evil," she confirmed. "Angel's not. He's playing them. It's that simple. And right now we can use his play to our advantage. But," she said, practically grinding her teeth. "It's got to be B's call."

_Might as well throw the olive branch_. "If you think it's okay, Faith, then we'll go."

Faith nodded instantly. "Let's get to it. Drive's not so bad if you know the way."

As the others started filing back around the bus to get in, Buffy grabbed Faith by the arm. She could feel the other Slayer's muscles tense at being grabbed. The sense memory for both of them was instant and vicious – the feeling of Buffy's hand on Faith's arm had triggered several fights and a few thousand dollars in property damage over the years. Even with their recent alliance, Buffy mused, every time she touched Faith it'd probably be like this. _I'm almost sad about that_, she thought. _Almost_.

"Faith, wait a second," she said. "I want to talk to you."

Faith stopped moving and relaxed by about a millimeter. "Sure thing, B," she said. As soon as the others were out of earshot she spoke again. "What's up?"

"Prison," Buffy said, simply.

A range of emotions filtered over Faith's face. "Whoa," she said. "Yeah, I almost forgot about all that." She laughed, a momentarily defenseless sound. "Can you believe that? Six life sentences and I just forgot. A little action will do that to you I guess."

Buffy smiled, the second genuine smile she'd cast at her old rival. "Are you talking about the demons or Robin?"

Faith smiled too. "Both, I guess. Gotta give it to him, the boy's got some talent. Really made me think about taking a second dip, and I don't even want to _talk_ about the last time I did that." The smile fell. "But I guess there won't be time, huh? The world's saved. Angel's back in charge of his own body. No real need for me to be running around anymore, right? Time to go back?"

"Faith..." Buffy started, but Faith waved her off.

"No, it's okay," Faith said, choking down the emotion that had been on her face a moment before. "I made the decision to, you know, atone. The last couple of months have been a – a detour, let's say. No need to waste talent when the going gets really tough. But, see, you've got an entire world full of Slayers now. One more isn't going to make a difference, not in this world. So I can get back to the atoning. Where I belong."

"Faith, would you shut up for a second?" Buffy said. "God, of all the personality problems you've managed to get by, hearing yourself speak isn't one of them."

"I could always atone and kick your ass," Faith muttered.

"Here's the deal," Buffy said. "Like you said, we've got a whole world full of new Slayers out there. Girls like us who woke up today in a whole new world. It didn't exactly go smoothly for either of us. After all, I died twice and you turned into a psycho."

"Thanks," Faith said.

"Point is, it doesn't have to be like that for all the girls out there who weren't part of the Sunnydale squad," Buffy said. She put her hand back on Faith's shoulder and this time there was no tensing of muscles from either woman. _Small miracles_, Buffy thought. "There's probably still a few hundred girls out there, Potentials we didn't manage to round up here and that the First hadn't gotten to yet. Girls we didn't even know were Potentials. They're scared and changing and don't know what to make of what's happening. We can find them and help them through it. Both of us."

"You really want me helping with a bunch of newbie Slayers?" Faith asked. "The last couple of months there really wasn't a choice, I know. But now I could just disappear."

"You're valuable to us still, Faith," Buffy said, wondering just how far the other woman was going to have to drag this out. "Not every girl out there who inherited the power today is going to be all sunshine and biscuits about it. If there's anyone who knows what being on the edge – or over it – is like, it's you. There are girls out there who are going to need to learn from people who've made the kinds of mistakes only Slayers can make – the kind of mistakes you've made and grown from. You want to go back to prison to atone? Sure, that's an option. I won't try and stop you if that's what you decide. But you can atone a lot better in my book by helping us to find these girls and give them hope. And I can guarantee that helping us will be a lot harder than sitting in a cell day in and day out."

Buffy looked at Faith and found a storm of indecision on her face. "I just...I don't know," she said. "I hadn't really thought this all through, you know?"

"There's a surprise," Buffy muttered. She straightened. "Think it through, though. At least come with us to LA to see Angel. You can make your decision after that."

Faith nodded. Buffy's hand was still on Faith's shoulder. Faith reached up and gave Buffy's hand a squeeze. "Buffy?" she asked, that vulnerable, defenseless note back. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Buffy said. The two Slayers turned and headed back towards the front of the bus. "And I could totally still kick your ass, by the way."

* * *

Sam Winchester pulled the metal welding mask he'd been wearing away from his face. "Try it now!" he shouted.

A moment of cursing later Sam heard a switch thrown and a low hum. Slowly, the lights inside the newly-rebuilt Roadhouse flickered on.

"Yeah, I'd say we have power!" As she was saying this, Ellen Harvelle, the middle-aged proprietor of the last Roadhouse, poked her head around the corner of the new building. "Finally get to stop using those ceremonial candles all the time. One accidental muttering in Latin and we'd have been swimming in angry fish spirits."

"I'm pretty sure you just mixed metaphors," Sam pointed out.

Dean Winchester, his brother and fellow demon hunter, jumped down from the roof. "There you go, talking fancy and making us normal, blue collar folk look uneducated," he said. He smiled a toothy, winning smile at Ellen. "Told you we'd have the place ready for opening tomorrow."

"I really do appreciate everything you boys have done here the past month," she said. "Come inside? Drinks and sandwiches are on the house. Jo should be about done with the sandwiches by now, I figure."

Dean grinned at his brother, a gesture which Sam didn't return. "Free food, Sammy! I knew we came here for a reason."

"We run credit card scams for money, Dean," Sam said. "Technically all of our food is 'free.'"

"Hey, how many times do I have to remind you how hard credit card fraud is these days?" Dean asked, flashing the same thousand-watt smile he'd used for Ellen a moment before. Sam's face remained mirthless. Dean faltered but the smile stayed plastered to his face. "Come on, Sam, let's at least eat."

Sam walked by him without a word. Dean shook his head and followed.

The inside of the rebuilt Roadhouse was pretty similar to the inside of the old bar and hunter-hangout. _It already looks dingy and it's not even open yet,_ Sam thought, looking around at the furniture, walls, bar, and pool table. Standing behind the bar was a short, skinny blonde, her hair tyed back in a ponytail. "Sandwiches?" Jo Harvelle asked, holding up a platter.

"I am famished. What's it tonight?" Dean asked as he sat down at a stool on the bar.

"Ham and salami, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and mayonnaise," Jo said, setting the platter down again.

Dean grabbed one of the sandwiches like they were made from gold and took a giant bite. "My favorite," he said, his mouth full, distorting the words. Jo smiled as Dean grinned through the sandwich at her. Ellen and Sam exchanged an exasperated look over their heads, although Ellen did have a slight smile on her face as she reached to pick her own sandwich up off the platter.

Sam sat down next to his brother and grabbed a sandwich, too. "Still planning the grand reopening tomorrow?" he asked, before taking a bite. He had to admit that the sandwich was pretty good; fresh ingredients, not to mention that they made the mayonnaise on site.

"Sure thing," Ellen said, swinging around behind the bar to stand next to Jo.

"Got fliers or something printed?" Dean asked.'

"Nah, no need," Ellen said. "Word travels slow in our circles sometimes. We still have a couple of old hunters drop by every couple of days; just hadn't heard we were out of business, and I've been telling all of them that we'll be back up and running again shortly, so the word that's spreading isn't that we're closed, just that we're reopening soon. We'll be as busy as ever in under a month, just you watch."

"Ah, the sound of an honest living," Dean said.

Ellen raised an eyebrow. "You know, if you're interested, I could always take you on as waiters. Tend bar a little, keep the place fixed up. Low wages but you'd get room and board. What do you say?"

Dean laughed, then saw that neither Ellen nor Jo was laughing along. _They've been planning this_, Sam realized. _Probably since we started putting up the new Roadhouse_. "We appreciate the offer, really," Sam said. "But we have to get moving, start tracking down some of the demons that escaped from the Devil's Gate."

_And figure out a way to get my brother out of his bone-headed deal_.

Ellen nodded first. "Figured as much," she said. "But I thought I'd try. Lord know no one could have convinced your daddy to settle down after what happened to Mary. But that's in the past now, right?"

"Old Yellow Eyes is dust," Dean confirmed.

"Still, plenty else to do," Ellen said. "Okay, fine, I've got something for you. A couple of those hunters who've come around that I mentioned earlier? They mentioned a job up in Beacon Hills, New York. Werewolves, small pack of them from the sounds of things. Already killed one hunter. These guys who swung by are part of an organization of hunters. Well, they're loosely affiliated with it – some council thing that started in Britain, I don't really know all the details. Point is, they're heading up to New York to figure out what's happening."

"Werewolves are bad news," Dean said.

"They could use a hand," Sam continued.

"My thoughts," Ellen said, laying her hands out. "I do have to warn you, these council boys can be a little brutal. Kind of single minded, like your friend Gordon Walker. They're good at what they do, but still – watch your backs."

"Always, ma'am," Dean said. "When'd they leave?"

"Yesterday," Ellen said. She glanced at the clock. Seven thirty in the evening, just starting to get dark. "You should probably leave now if you want to catch up to them."

"Sure," Dean said. He eyed Jo, who'd been uncharacteristically quiet during the whole exchange. "Uh, Sam, didn't you have some things to load into the truck? You know, equipment and all that?"

Dean and Jo were both looking pointedly at Sam.

"Right," Sam said. "Equipment. Stuff. In the car."

Ellen rolled her eyes. "Come on, boy, I'll help you get everything gathered while these two say goodbye." She got up and followed Sam to the front door, but stopped as Sam was halfway through it. "And you can use your tongues to say good-bye, but only so long's there's at least five feet between you when you do."

With that, Sam and Ellen both pushed through the front door and let it close gently behind them, cutting off Dean's bemused-but-frightened and Jo's mortified expressions. As soon as the door was shut Ellen laughed. "I never get tired of making her give me that face," she said.

Sam bent down and started collecting the tools he'd used to get the wiring on the new Roadhouse complete. "I can never track how you really feel about the two of them," he said.

"Ah, it's biology," Ellen said. "I know Dean's got some issues, but he's got a good heart, and that look on his face tells me that he knows I'll shoot him in ways that'll make him useless to a woman if he breaks my baby's heart. If it's just a fling she might as well get it out of her system with someone trustworthy, and if it's more than that – well, who am I to get in their way? This is a short, shitty life we've got for ourselves, might as well make the most of it."

"Yeah, amen," Sam muttered, knowing that Ellen probably thought he was agreeing with the second half of her last sentence, when it fact it was the first.

A moment later, the tools mostly gathered up, Dean came walking through the front door to the Roadhouse. Sam shut the trunk of the Impala with its trademark squeak. "That was fast," he said.

"No fast jokes, not in front of her mom," Dean said. Ellen frowned but Dean wrapped her in a hug before she could chastise him. "Thanks for everything, Ellen. We'll stay in touch."

Sam waived, pulling open the passenger door of the Impala. "You boys be careful," Ellen said.

Dean sat down in the driver's seat and flashed one last thousand-watt smile at Ellen. "Nothing else but," he said, and put the car into gear, peeling away from the Roadhouse.

The Interstate was less than a mile from the Roadhouse, so they were moving at an excellent pace in no time. Sam, looking out the window, shook his head at his brother. "You really shouldn't have lead her on like that," he said.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Jo," Sam said. "I thought she was above your use 'em and lose 'em streak, but I guess that's out the window now."

"I didn't touch her," Dean said. Sam instantly recognized his brother's defensive voice.

"Really?" Sam asked, turning to look at Dean as he drove.

"Yeah, really," Dean replied. "Like you said, she's above all that."

"I suppose you didn't tell her, either, did you?" Sam asked.

"Tell her what, Sam?" Dean asked, turning to stare daggers at his brother.

"You know," Sam said.

Dean focused back on the road, but he punched the steering wheel in frustration. "Damn it, no," he said. "No point in getting her all worried. Besides, she'd have just told Ellen, and then we'd have been in a bigger mess with her. Either I'm dead in a year and we can't stop it, or I'm not dead in a year because we did stop it. Either way there's no need to involve them right now. Let it be a surprise if it does happen. I don't want Jo looking at me with pity."

"They could help," Sam pointed out.

"Sam!" Dean shouted. "Enough, okay? Let's work this werewolf job and see if we can track down a few demons. Maybe once we've gotten warmed up again we can talk about getting me out of this deal."

Sam shook his head again and returned his gaze to the street passing by outside his window. Dean reached over and turned up the music.

* * *

Scott McHall could feel several things of note. Gravity was the first; sitting on a roof about three stories up, gravity is one of those things you worry about. Asphalt shingles were another – scratchy, stiff things, not the most comfortable thing to lie on. A slight breeze, which, aside from tickling his face, also brought him a myriad of smells, many of which he still couldn't make out. And, of course, the most important, the small, narrow frame of Allison Argent, around whom he was coiled and holding close to his chest.

All of his cuts had healed from the fight earlier with Peter Hale, the now-deceased werewolf alpha, but he'd still gotten plenty of blood – Peter's, his own, even some of Allison's aunt Kate's which had still been on Peter's claws when they'd fought – on himself. Allison had insisted that it didn't matter and had practically leaped out of the window when he'd arrived to hug him. There'd been tears in her eyes. _She'll spend less time crying once she doesn't have to deal with you anymore_, a voice in the back Scott's head sounded. He pushed it aside. He wanted to enjoy what was left.

Then she'd started looking at the moon and that's when he'd realized it was time. "I should get going," he said, gently pushing Allison off of himself so he could stand. He brushed his clothes smooth, wishing simultaneously that he could brush the scent of her off of himself and also that it would never fade.

"I wish you could stay," Allison said. "God, I wish you could stay forever."

"Well, I can't stay," Scott said. "And I think we both know that."

He started to get ready to leap down off of Allison's roof, but Allison pressed a hand to chest to stop him. "Wait a minute," she said. "What did that mean?"

Scott rolled his eyes, but studiously avoided meeting hers. "We both know what it meant," he said. "This was good-bye, wasn't it?"

Allison laughed, a sound that came out more like a sob than anything else. "Good-bye?" she said. "What part of me telling you I love you sounded like 'good-bye?'"

"The part where it came right after you told me you didn't believe me about everything that's been happening," Scott said. "The part where it came right after you shot Derek – twice! - and then shot at me."

"I still thought he was a killer!" Allison said. "Well, okay, I'd had my doubts after the thing in the school, but once Kate showed me what he was, down in that cellar thing, I'd started to think maybe he really was a killer."

"Wait, you _saw_ what your aunt was doing to him down there?" Scott asked. He finally met Allison's eyes, to find them wide and full of tears, and his indignation faltered. Only for a second. "She was _torturing_ him! For fun! What justifies that?"

"I don't know!" Allison said. The tears were beginning to flow freely. "I just – I didn't know what to think! She was my aunt, Scott. I'd know her my whole life. She helped teach me to ride a bicycle. She gave me tips the first time I had a crush on a boy and wanted to kiss him. I didn't know she was like that!"

Scott nodded. "Yeah, okay," he said. "Point taken. But you're still the one who shot Derek. I heard her giving you instructions, you know. Werewolf ears. She told you to shoot him in the leg and you did, you shot him in the leg. He's a person! Maybe not genetically the same as you but he still thinks and feels, and you were so methodical about hurting him. Would you have been that methodical about hurting me?"

It was finally overwhelming her. Allison turned away. "Scott, I -"

"Just don't, Allison," Scott said. "I know that you said you loved me, but that's not enough. You don't trust me. I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life about the look on your face when you saw that I was a werewolf. And those nightmares are always, _always_ going to include hearing you tell me that you didn't believe me. Because it meant that you believed I was just an animal."

Scott readied himself to jump down again, but was surprised when Allison grabbed his arm and held him fast. He tried to break her grip but she held on and he didn't move. "Listen to me," she said, her voice low, her face covered in tears. "If you want to leave after this, leave, but listen to me first. I do love you. Tonight, I was confused, angry, and being told what to do by someone I loved, someone I thought I could trust. Yeah, I did things that weren't okay. I regret shooting Derek. I regret shooting at you. And yes, I didn't believe you that everything you'd done was to protect me. But not because I thought you were an animal. Because you were lying to me, constantly, and I don't want or need lies. I need the truth. I need the people I love to be telling me the truth. Kate lied to me too, you know – she said we were just going to catch you and Derek, not kill you. I wanted to catch you because I wasn't sure if you were an animal or not, but mostly because I didn't believe that you were doing everything to protect me and I wanted you to _make me believe_. We didn't get a chance to go into all that."

By the end of her speech Scott was shaking violently in Allison's grip. "You could have just asked," he said, the last of his resolve ready to crumble.

"I had just watched you grow fangs," Allison said. "The only person willing to talk to me was my aunt, and she was telling me you were dangerous. Of course I came prepared, but _I wasn't going to kill you_. I love you."

Scott faltered and collapsed backward, sitting down forcefully on the roof, burying his head in his hands. "I'm sorry," he said, through tears of his own, as Allison bent quickly and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you from the start. I was so scared, and I thought I was a freak and there was no way you'd feel the same way about me that I did about you, and then everything was going out of control and I'm just _sorry_, you know, I'm so sorry..."

Allison shushed him gently and laid her own head down on top of neck, above his forward bent head, and held him as the sobs silently wracked his body. "I know," she whispered. "I'm sorry, too."

After a moment, Scott's sobs subsided, and he shifted to look at Allison. There were still tears in her eyes, but she was smiling, and so beautiful. She withdrew enough to let his head come up, keeping one arm draped around his shoulders. He found the hand of her other arm and squeezed. "No more secrets," she said.

"No more secrets," he agreed. "God, I love you so much. I could never do this without you."

"You're never going to have to," Allison said, as she inclined her face toward his for a kiss. "I promise. I love you, too."

* * *

_Last day of school_, Cassie Blake thought to herself, as she hitched her bag up on her shoulder and made her way towards Chance Harbor High. She couldn't help it; as much as she thought she'd never be a normal girl again, certain things seemed inescapable, and counting down to the end of school was one of them.

She stopped by the front door to regard the young man standing next to it, gazing off into space. "Hey, Adam," she said. He didn't respond, still staring at the sky, a glazed look in his eye. "Hey. Adam," she said, more slowly.

He shook off the glazed look and smiled. "Hey, Cassie," he said. Then he grinned, sheepish. "Uh, been there long?"

"No," she said. She laughed. "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing," Adam said. "Just introspective. Thinking about stuff. Want to go in?"

"Might as well. Last day!" Cassie made a show of doing a little dance and Adam smiled again. She pushed the door open and he followed her through into the school's halls. She set her bag down next to her locker and turned to face Adam again. _Was he just checking out my ass?_ "Want to tell me what you were thinking about?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "We have new kids."

"On the last day?" Cassie asked. "Isn't that a little weird?"

"Yeah," Adam said. "Really weird. Faye and her mom were at the Boathouse last night and she mentioned that we've got four new kids enrolling today. Wanted to meet a few people before the summer break starts. You know, get acclimated."

"Yeah, I suppose I do know," Cassie said. Adam kept looking at her, waiting for it to click. "Wait – you said four?"

"Yup," he said. "Four. Different families, too. Four kids from different families show up, just now, all at once."

"Oh, man," Cassie said, turning back to her locker, trying to look inconspicuous, suddenly unsure of who could be watching. "You don't think - "  
"Not sure," Adam said. "But it'd make sense for them to be the other Balcoin witches. Your brothers and sisters."

"And Diana's," Cassie said, under her breath, almost without realizing she'd said it.

"Yeah, well, they won't be Diana's problem, at least," Adam said, and Cassie could detect the faint note of bitterness. "Any word from her, by the way?"

"No," Cassie said, taking books out of her bag and placing them in her locker. "I've tried calling a few times, but she's not returning my messages. I thought about casting a spell to locate her, just to keep track and make sure things are okay, but it felt like it'd be an invasion of her privacy. She made it pretty clear that she needs to have nothing to do with this place for a while, and I guess that also means having nothing to do with us for a little while, too."

Adam shook his head, but refrained from saying anything more. Always trying to keep his own negativity in check, Cassie mused. She had to fight down the urge to reach out and stroke his cheek to make him feel better. _Maybe now that we're not a circle anymore, we could do something to counteract the spell that made him forget how he felt about me_, Cassie thought. _I'm sure he was checking me out earlier. Maybe we won't need to do anything to counteract it._

"So, any idea where to find the Balcoin kids?" she asked, trying to sound positive.

"Remember, we don't know for sure that's who they are," Adam said. "The last thing we need is to make a scene."

Cassie turned her right hand over so it was facing palm-up. "At least we have a pretty sure-fire way to tell if that's who they are," she said. Adam reached out and traced the lines on her hand, the same lines her now-dead father, John Blackwell, had possessed. Cassie shivered and retraced her hand.

"Sorry," Adam said.

"No, it's okay," Cassie replied. "It's just weird having you – having someone touch it."

The two stood for a moment as Cassie's slip hung in the air. The moment was interrupted by the ring of the school bell.

"You have first period with one of the new kids," Adam said, pointing to the room down the hall for which Cassie was bound. "Faye stole their schedules from her mom last night and we looked them over. I have third period with one of them, too. You'll be meeting," he stopped, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a folded square of notebook paper, opening it and smoothing it against the row of lockers, "Michael Fillion. I'll be meeting someone named Mariah Madison. Faye said she and Melissa would try to set it up to run into the other two during the day. Jake's hanging around on backup if anything goes down, so just text him and he'll be here."

"You trust Jake?" Cassie asked, looking over the names and class schedules on the piece of paper Adam was holding.

"I wouldn't go that far," Adam said, looking away. "I guess the guy grows on you eventually. Whatever, he knows its his neck on the line too if these Balcoin witches wind up being hostile."

"So you do think it's them?"

"I think I'm sick of coincidences," Adam said. "Four of them, plus you and Diana, would make a Balcoin circle. John Blackwell mentions he's trying to make a Balcoin circle shortly before they show up, with different names and different families and from different places, but all mysteriously at the same time. Too much coincidence. That said, like I said earlier, we can't afford to make a scene out of this if it turns out they're _not_ Balcoin."

"Valid points all," Cassie said. She forced a smile. "Still, at least they're not as bad as my father was, right?"

Adam did not return the smile. "Cassie," he started, trying to be gentle. "We don't know that."

Cassie's face fell. "Yeah," she said. "I guess not."

"First thing's first, we have to figure out if they are or aren't Balcoin," Adam said. "Go meet Michael Fillion. Faye said she'd get Melissa and Jake to meet us after school at the Boathouse so we can figure out what to do next. I told her I'd tell you."

"Right after school?" Cassie asked.

"Right after," Adam confirmed. "My dad always does thing – half-price milkshakes for Chance Harbor High students after the last day of school – so it'll be packed, won't look weird for us all to sit together for a while."

"Good," Cassie said. "See you then?"

"Yeah," Adam said, turning to go. Again, Cassie had to suppress the desire to reach out and kiss him good-bye. Nothing terribly passionate or dramatic, just a quick, cute acknowledgment of how she felt – stymied by the magic which prevented him from feeling the same way, of course.

Burying that, Cassie turned and headed down the hall to class.

Cassie's first period class was Chemistry. The class' final had been almost a week ago and they'd been playing hangman every day since to pass the time to the end of the year. Perfect for seeking out new kid and finding out if he had inherited a legacy of evil magic. Cassie shook her head and wondered, just for a moment, when everything would slow down.

The new kid wasn't hard to spot. Chance Harbor was a relatively small town where most everyone knew most everyone else; a fresh face would cause a splash every time. Except this time – while Michael Fillion was easy enough to spot, no one was paying much attention. _Perfect_, Cassie thought. _The one day they could show up as new students at the school and be left completely alone. No cheesy introductions at the beginning of class, office-assigned tour guides. Not even attention from the student body – everyone's too excited to be getting out for the summer to care about a pack of new kids. They can scope the place out incognito._

Upon approaching him, Cassie was hit by three thoughts – first, that there was no doubt in her mind that he was the son of John Blackwell, because he looked like a leaner, thirty years younger version of her dead father; second, that he was gorgeous, a thought that caused bile to swirl in the back of her throat when she remembered that this boy was most likely her brother; and three, that Michael Fillion must have been color blind, because every piece of clothing she could see – and, she suspected, any she couldn't see – was black.

She sat down next to him. "Hey," she said.

He looked over at her. His head lolled more than it moved, a supremely casual motion. "Hey," he imitated.

She cleared her throat. "You're new, right?" she said, trying to sound positive and upbeat. "Must be tough being a new kid on the last day of school. I was new early in the year and that was hard enough."

"I guess," Michael responded. He was starting to smile, although the gesture only seemed to effect the lower half of his face. Cassie shivered, a reaction completely different from the one she'd had with Adam back in the hall. Every movement Michael Fillion made seemed to involve his body melting from one shape to another.

Cassie stuck out her right hand. "I'm Cassie Blake," she said. "It's nice to meet you."

Her hand hung in the air as Michael Fillion watched it. "You want to see if I've got the mark," he said. Even the voice had the quality of melting steel.

Cassie felt cold run down her back. "What?" she asked.

"Don't play coy," Michael said. "It's unattractive, and anyway, we all felt Dad's death. You killed him, didn't you?"

Unsure how to respond, Cassie lowered her hand and shrank back slightly in her chair. Michael, apparently, took this as confirmation. "Excellent! He didn't think you'd have that in you – not yet anyway – but I have to admit, a part of me was hoping. Makes things so much more interesting, don't you think? Besides," he said, casting a glance out the door. Melissa had just walked by. "If all the non-Balcoin witches in the world just suddenly up and died, it'd be terrible waste of _talent_, don't you think?"

"You knew about the whole thing," Cassie said, her voice choking.

"Knew what he was planning, didn't know where, not until the Skull was formed," Michael said. "After that we were all drawn here. Although it was a choice to come. We're all here for our own reasons, Cassie Blake. Me, I just want to see what happens next. Don't you?"

He got up, leaving Cassie sitting in her seat, staring after her brother. As he walked out, she looked over his right hand and saw the same mark that adorned her own etched into the skin.

* * *

_They brought a freaking dragon_.

Craig looked up at the scaly, winged beast that filled his field of vision. Wings sixty feet long, tail extending at least twice that behind it. Unlike the men on brooms with metal masks, who were held by the blue electricity of the American Wizard Academy's dark magic wards, the dragon – a creature and thus unaligned as far as the wards were concerned – was able to fly straight through.

_The big guns_, Craig thought to himself. He shed his jacket, which didn't contain anything he'd need for the fight anyway, leaving him in a loose but close fitting pair of black jeans, black boots, and a clinging red t-shirt. Fighting gear. The men on brooms were probing the wards, trying to break through the repulsive field of magic preventing them from attacking the school directly. They'd be through in short order, but then they'd meet the teachers, who were pretty formidable themselves. In the meantime, though, the dragon was beginning to descend on Caleghany Hall, one of the dormitories, and was clearly preparing to breathe fire.

Craig leaped up into a nearby tree and climbed quickly to the top, about thirty feet off the ground. _Should have expected dragons_, he reasoned. The AWA was built on a plateau sixty feet in the air. The walls were in-scalable, so attack from the air was the school's main threat. _Have to remember to bring that up at some point once this is over_.

The dragon was almost in line to bathe the dormitory with fire. Just before it began to pass the tree he waited in, Craig leaped out the of the tree, landing on the dragon's back. He withdrew his kris, a long, jagged knife, from the leather pouch at his hip and dug the blade into the dragon's back, right below the neck.

The dragon screamed in pain, rage, and surprise, turning its head enough to see Craig with one midnight-black eye. It flapped its gigantic wings twice and began picking up altitude again. It passed by the dorm, leaving it unscathed. It began to twist and writhe, trying to shake Craig free. Craig gripped his kris closer and waited for the dragon to change tactics; that's when he'd strike.

As the dragon tried unsuccessfully to buck him off, Craig studied it. The beast was mostly black, with streaks of dark green and red. It's whole body had a swept back look, probably to maintain aerodynamics. The wings, Craig noted, looked to be made of a thin membrane. He decided in a second that that would be his play.

Below him, the teachers were beginning to assemble. "Focus on the brooms!" Craig shouted. "I've got this thing!" There was no way for him to know definitely whether the teachers heard him, but since they didn't begin firing spells at the dragon he assumed they had.

After another moment of trying to shake the boy loose, the dragon gave up and began flapping its wings harder, gaining more altitude. Craig waited, and, when the dragon suddenly turned into a steep dive, he kicked off from the dragon's scaly back, yanking the kris free as he went. He tumbled along the dragon's enormous body, then dug the knife in again when he'd reached the base of the wings. The dragon screamed again, and Craig launched himself sideways onto the dragon's wing. When he dug the kris in for the third time, instead of sticking him rigidly in place it began to tear through the wing membrane. Craig rode down the entire side of the dragon like that, separating the wing. With a click, the knife cut through the small bone at the very edge of the wing, and Craig was left in freefall beside the tumbling beast.

Craig hit the ground hard in a crouch, bringing his free hand forward to steady himself. While sturdier than the average person, the impact still jarred him, shaking him from his toes to his back teeth. The dragon didn't fare better; the loss of one wing completely threw it off, and it hit the ground tumbling end over end, digging a furrow twenty feet long. When it came to rest, it was clear that its neck had snapped during the impact.

"One down," Craig muttered. Then he looked up. "Uh, lots to go."

At that moment, the electric blue field projected by the wards collapsed and receded down into the ground. The men on brooms descended towards the school in steep dives, and the teachers began shouting incantations, firing deadly streams of magic at them. The men on the brooms got the idea and started returning fire, so that the night was quickly lit up with flying spells.

Wand magic had never been Craig's strong suit; truth be told he didn't have one of his own. He dropped into a crouch, ready to dodge out of the way of incoming spells or deflect them with the kris, which was made of pure iron; but he didn't get a chance to do either. With a slight popping sound, eight groups of what looked like people popped into existence on the school grounds.

"Vampires!" one of the teachers yelled, but Craig hadn't needed to be told. He'd been raised to fight these creatures and could smell them from a mile away. He replaced the kris in its leather pouch and dug his favorite stake, a long, thin piece of sharpened white pine, from his back pocket. He smiled. They'd thought to bring vampires to fight _him_?

Twenty minutes later he wasn't smiling anymore. They'd brought a lot of vampires. Many of them – Craig had lost count – were dust at his feet, but more kept coming, popping into existence on the school grounds. _Apparition isn't supposed to be possible here_, he thought. _What the hell is going on?_

"They're in the dormitories!" one of the teachers yelled. "Fall back and regroup!"

"Craig! Craig, are you coming!" another teacher yelled to him.

"I'll cover your retreat!" he yelled back. He sent a roundhouse kick into the chin of a vampire that had just lunged for him, staggering the creature back a few steps.

"Craig, damn it, you're seventeen years old and still a student here!" the teacher yelled back. "Get back here with the rest of us!"

"I said I'd cover you!" Craig yelled. The vampire had tried to shake off the disorientation of Craig's boot in his face, but he didn't get his senses back fast enough; Craig plunged his stake into the vampire's chest and didn't stop to watch it turn to dust before he raised his arm to parry a punch from another undead. The teacher – Craig wasn't sure who was who in the fog created by all the dusted vampires and deflected spells – gave up and ran back towards the dormitory.

Which exploded the second he was inside.

Craig's last punch audibly snapped the neck of the vampire he was fighting, but he didn't care. He turned to look at the dorm. "No," he muttered. His hand tightened around the stake until he could smell his own blood dripping from it. "No!" he shouted, turned, and began swinging his fists and feet at anything that moved, feeling bones shattering, muscles tearing, dust scattering, it all didn't matter so long as he could keep on hurting the things that had hurt his friends. Finally, after a few minutes of plowing through the ranks of the undead, another explosion ripped at the ground around him and Craig saw black.

* * *

At the exact same instant, across the Atlantic, Harry Potter started awake, gasping for breath. He needed a moment to center himself, remember where he was – Four Privet Drive, with his horrible aunt, uncle, and cousin. It was summer break and, he had to remind himself twice, he was still in England.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to reconcile the myriad images he'd just seen. A young man riding a dragon – a witch with white hair and a red scythe – a middle-aged man with an odd tattoo on his hand dying – a crypt with a pentagram springing open and a torrent of black smoke writhing like a horrible, flying snake out of its depths – an entire town collapsing in on itself while a single school bus fled for the lives of its occupants. Harry shook his head and tried to get them all to resolve into something clear, something that would make sense, but it wasn't working.

Hastily, he grabbed at the quill and parchment he kept by bedside. He'd taken to writing down his strange dreams so that he and Dumbledore would be able to compare notes once he was back at Hogwarts. He began scribbling, only to stop mid-sentence when he he realized his quill wasn't the only thing making a scratching sound.

An owl was perched on his windowsill, one he recognized – Ron's Pigwidgeon, a tiny, brown, hyper owl. Harry hastily drew up the pane to his window to let Pig in. "Have a letter for me, Pig?" he asked. "I could use some good news. Bad dreams. Have something to eat?"

He began to carry the owl over to Hedwig's cage, but Pig nipped quickly at his fingers. Having Harry's attention, Pig stuck out his leg, and Harry retrieved the note attached there, more than a little unnerved by the usual playful owl's solemnity. As soon as the letter was detached, Pig made for the window and started flying quickly through the night. Even more unnerved, Harry unwound the letter and read:

Harry,

Major events today worldwide. Magic destabilized to its very core. YOUR PROTECTION AT THE DURSLEYS MIGHT NOT BE IN FORCE RIGHT NOW. Don't panic, Arthur is coming to get you. Have your things ready but DON'T TRY TO LEAVE BEFORE HE GETS THERE.

Mrs Weasley

Harry's heart was practically beating out of his chest by the time he finished the letter. He whirled, grabbed Hedwig's cage, through the door open and coaxed the owl quickly out. "The Burrow," he muttered, which was all Hedwig needed. She took off into the night, following the same path Pigwideon had just taken.

A scarce two minutes later, Harry had his trunk, broom, and invisibility cloak gathered at the foot of the stairs. The commotion, naturally, drew the attention of his aunt and uncle.

"What are you doing, boy?" Uncle Vernon asked, marching from the kitchen into the hall, where Harry was busy piling his things.

"Leaving," Harry said, shortly, making sure his trunk was secure.

"You can't," Aunt Petunia said, following in behind her husband. "You're not allowed."

Harry sighed, handed the letter from Mrs. Weasley to his aunt. She read quickly and her eyes bulged out of her head. "We have to go right now!" she screeched, grabbing at her husband.

"Right now! Where's Dudley?"

"At a sleepover, why's all the racket?"

"_Just go!_"

They pushed through the door. Harry heard the engine of their automobile start, heard it pull down the driveway, peel out and the speed away. "Thanks for making sure I'm okay," he muttered, but he couldn't really blame them. There was nothing at all they could do to protect him now, and staying was only going to put them in further danger.

A knock on the front door jarred Harry from his thoughts. He unhinged it and swung it open slightly to see Arthur Weasley, a harried look on his face, holding a broom in one hand and his wand in the other. "All right, Harry?" he asked. "Your things are here? Good, leave them to me, you just get in the air right now. Go!"

Harry got onto his broom and kicked off, picking up speed to get altitude. Below him, he saw Mr. Weasley cast an enchantment that would lighten his trunk, and tethered it to his own broom. He had just enough time to mount the broom just outside the door before Four Privet Drive exploded in a giant fireball.

Harry stopped his ascent immediately, turning back towards the fiery, smoky ruins of his former home. The heat from the blast seared his face, but he still dove back towards the ruins. "I'm fine, Harry!" came Mr. Weasley's voice, choked and coughing and not convincing in the slightest. "Just go!"

When Harry was still about thirty feet off the ground, the smoke obscuring his vision suddenly imploded in on itself, being summoned into the tip of wand – a wand held by Lord Voldemort himself. "Yes, Harry, go," he taunted.

"You!" Harry yelled, drawing his own wand.

"Yes, me," Voldemort said. "One would think you'd be less surprised seeing me around when bad things happen to you, but then, it's that sense of wonder and discovery that really makes waking up worthwhile, wouldn't you agree, Harry? If there wasn't any surprise left in our lives we'd all just die of boredom."

Mr. Weasley, along with his broom and Harry's trunk, lay smoking at Voldemort's feet. He was no longer moving.

"Very profound," Harry shouted back.

"Oh, not so much," Voldemort said. His eyes were locked on Harry and no part of his body was moving. Harry wasn't even sure the evil wizard was breathing. "You don't usually find much that's profound in words, Harry. You find things that are profound in _choices_. Very few people I've known have managed to grasp that, and I'm mostly certain you won't, either, but that's of little consequence to me. Here's how this will work. I'll let you leave, if you'd like – this one time only. Or, you can try to save your friend here, and then you'll both die. Like I said – profundity is in your choices."

And the evil wizard stood.

Harry thought furiously. He knew that Voldemort wouldn't let his offer stand for very long – if he really intended to honor the agreement at all, something which Harry doubted – and he was going to need to make every second count. His fingers went to his pocket, where he'd concealed his Invisibility Cloak – he always kept it on his person these days. But how could he _use_ it? Voldemort didn't need to know where Harry was, only where Mr. Weasley was, and that would be enough to kill them both in any rescue attempt.

Unless...

Harry unfurled the cloak and threw it over himself. To Voldemort, he knew that he just appeared to vanish. "A bit of stealth, Harry?" Voldemort called out. "I'll take that to mean you've left, and the old man can die." Slowly, teasingly, the evil wizard dipped his wand towards the unconscious Mr. Weasley. Harry pointed the broom in a straight line over Voldemort's head and took off quickly. At the precise moment necessary, Harry let go of the broom, keeping the invisibility cloak bundled around himself as he hurtled down towards the ground. Predictably, at the sudden re-appearance of Harry's Firebolt, Voldemort had snapped his wand upward and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!" sending a stream of green light into the night sky, which connected with the empty broom – jarring it with the impact but otherwise not harming it. Still on his way toward the ground Harry muttered a summoning charm just as Voldemort squinted at the empty broom and muttered, "Huh?"

The broom changed course, zooming downward, and just as Harry got a hand on Mr. Weasley and his trunk the broom caught him. The force of suddenly changing direction and hauling Mr. Weasley's dead weight up off the ground caused a sickening jolt in Harry's shoulder, and a second later, as the Firebolt carried Harry, Mr. Weasley, and Harry's trunk briskly away from the ruins of Four Privet Drive, another bolt of green light went streaking past Harry. The bolt had missed by less than a foot. Behind him, he heard Voldemort cursing, calling for Death Eaters to pursue him. Harry put on speed, but wasn't particularly worried – the Invisibility Cloak was draped over both him and Mr. Weasley and the trunk, and it'd never failed him before. Turning in midair, Harry smiled an insane, happy to be alive smile, and shot off, invisible, toward the Burrow.

* * *

And...there's chapter one. I'll be completely frank about this – I have no idea how much time I'm going to be able to devote to this project. I have a wife, a full-time job, and several creative projects that I actually own the rights to going right now, all of which take up a lot of time. Still, I like where this is going and want to see it through. Please review – the more people that express interest, the more likely I am to keep writing. Thanks for reading.

PS: Curious about the title? It comes from rather infamous line of poetry from Horace, which also gave us the line "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," or, "how sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country." The problem with titling this work is that, if it goes all the places I'd like it to go, it's going to be _so freaking huge_ that tying it all together under one title would be really hard. Well, the title could always change.


	2. Part One, Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

It was about two in the morning when the bus full of Sunnydale survivors pulled to a stop in front of the Hyperion Hotel in Los Angeles. Giles was driving, Buffy sitting in the seat behind and across the aisle from him, the closest thing to shotgun the bus had. Casting a look around, only Faith was also awake. Deciding not to awaken any of the others, Buffy opened the door and motioned to Giles and Faith to disembark with her.

Standing on the dark LA street, Buffy cast a glance up and down. "Damn," she muttered. The place was a warzone. Half the buildings on the street were fire-damaged. Debris had been hastily swept into lines on the sidewalks and was clogging up the gutters in the streets. Down the street, a man in ragged sweatshirt bolted out of an alley into the middle of the street, chased closely by a hobbling man in similarly ragged attire.

"It was pretty bad when I first got out," Faith said. "Round-the-clock darkness in a messed up metro like this didn't exactly improve the city's atmosphere. Still, you'd think things would've gotten better by now."

"We should probably contact Angel to let him know we've arrived," Giles said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He'd made most of the drive from Sunnydale himself. Buffy patted his back and he smiled and, not for the first time, she was glad to have him back in her corner.

The pat stopped quickly. "Uh – someone called Angel to tell him we were coming, right?"

Giles and Faith both looked dumfounded. "Uh, I guess we thought you'd handle it?" Faith asked. "He's your groin-buddy."

"Classy," Buffy bit off. "Anyway, he's sponsoring the redemption of your soul or whatever, so it's not like you couldn't have called."

"I think who should have called is perhaps a moot point now," Giles pointed out. He looked back at the bus, on which a few figures were stirring. "Who has a phone?"

Faith patted her pockets and shrugged. Buffy dug into her side pocket and produced a small, silver phone. She dialed the number Angel had given her before leaving and pressed the phone to her ear.

It picked up on the fourth ring, just as Buffy thought it might go to voicemail. "Damn it, what do all of the buttons on this thing _do_ – hello?" Angel's voice sounded annoyed.

"Angel?" she asked.

"_Buffy?_" the vampire's voice was flooded with relief. "Where've you been? I got a report last night that the Sunnydale Hellmouth had closed and the town was completely destroyed. What the hell happened?"

"We fought," Buffy said, simply. "We won. Bad guys went boom."

When Buffy and Angel had dated, he'd had a way of rolling his eyes at her without actually rolling his eyes. She could practically feel him doing this now through the phone. "And you're just now calling, eight hours later?"

"Yeah, sorry," Buffy said. "Kind of hard to focus after a fight that big, you know? Anyway, we're at the Hyperion, but all the lights are out and I'm pretty sure the front door has been blasted off. Where are you guys?"

"Not there," Angel said, and it was Buffy's turn to roll her eyes at her former lover. "Wolfram and Hart has us in corporate apartments in the financial district."

"Fancy," Buffy said.

"How many – uh, how many of you are there?" Angel asked.

Buffy sighed. The head count hadn't been fun. "Thirty-two," she said.

"Who died?" Angel asked, sharply.

"Spike," Buffy said.

"Anyone important?" Angel asked, less sharp.

"I'm hanging up on you now," Buffy said, totally level. Faith and Giles, both reclining against the Hyperion's outer fence, raised their eyebrows and cast glances at each other.

"Sorry," Angel said. "Yeah, I know he was important to you. Anyway, thirty-two is too many for us to put up here. The Hyperion's actually in pretty good shape, although it probably doesn't look like it from the outside. Wesley and I did a walkthrough yesterday and there weren't even any displaced taking shelter. I'll see if he's still up and we'll be over a in a few."

"See you then," Buffy said, and hung up.

"So?" Faith asked and Giles asked at the same time.

"So, we're staying here," Buffy said.

"Buffy, I'm not certain this hotel is entirely secure," Giles said. When he pushed off from the fence, the section he'd been leaning against toppled over with a clang onto the sidewalk. "Or stable, for that matter."

Buffy shrugged. "Angel's vouching for it. He and Wesley are on their way over. Let's get the troops off the bus."

By the time the groggy remnants of Buffy's Slayer army were off the bus and piled into the trashed entrance hall of the hotel, Angel and Wesley pulled up out front in a sleek black sedan and pushed their way in past the twisted, bombed-out front door. "Going to have to get someone to come over and fix that in the morning," Wesley muttered.

Angel, meanwhile was clearly resiting the urge to rush over to Buffy and smother her in a hug. Looking tense and nervous and not unlike a puppy dog, he stopped several feet in front of Buffy and said, simply, "Hi."

"Hi," Buffy responded, a small, sardonic drawl that nonetheless also summoned a smile to her lips. Watching her ex, King of the Brood-Masters, whenever he got into a situation where he was happy but didn't know how to act never really got old. "The – uh, Slayers, are pretty tired. Can we get them set up before we talk?"

"Of course," Angel said. He gestured to Wesley. "Remember, all the rooms on the third floor still aren't livable."

Wesley scowled. "I won't be forgetting any time soon," he said. He turned to the mass of bleary-eyed girls. "This way, please." Buffy watched as the Slayers, Dawn, Andrew, Xander, and Robin, Robin supported by two of the Slayers, retreated up the stairs, leaving her, Willow, Faith, Giles, and Angel standing in the entrance hall.

"What happened on the third floor?" Buffy asked.

"Eh," Angel said. Buffy stared him down. "An inter-dimensional demi-god that was planning on bringing about world peace through hypnotism was eating people."

"It couldn't have been roaches," Faith said.

"Those too," Angel said. "I mean, we have those too, not that she was eating roaches."

"Wait, is the thought of someone eating roaches weird to you, but the fact that she was eating people isn't weird?"

"Well, they're not exactly nutritious," Angel muttered. "Anyway, hello, vampire here! I spent more than a century eating people."

"I've heard that roaches are high in fiber," Willow said. Faith made a face.

"I feel like we're getting a little off topic here," Giles said.

"We've been on topic for months," Buffy said. "It feels good to be off topic."  
"Well, yes, but I can never follow you when you do that," Giles said. "I just go to my 'happy place,' as Xander put it, and wait it out. Shall we sit down and discuss the situation?"

Angel scratched the back of his head. "I'm not completely sure where our couch went," he said. "There should be some folding chairs stacked in my office."

A moment later, the five of them were sitting in a loose circle behind the check-in counter in their black metal folding chairs. "So, the First is history," Angel said.

"Well, we believe the current plan to destroy the Slayer line and unleash the Turok-Han army has been thwarted," Giles said. "In no small part due to the Turok-Han army being obliterated along with the Hellmouth. I think we can count the First out, at least for the time being."

"Good," Angel said. "We've been trying to rebuild here, but it's been rough. The city will eventually pull through – and we're using every spare resource at Wolfram and Hart to help it along – but it's still kind of a jungle out there." He cleared his throat. "More so than usual, anyway."

"Angel, there's something about our fight with the First that you need to know," Buffy said. "Those girls that Wesley just took up stairs – they're not Potentials anymore. They're all Slayers now."

Angel stared at her for a second. "Come again?" he asked. "They're – all of them? How?"

"That'd be me," Willow said. "Lots of mojo and a freaky hair-dye thing that didn't stick around long and every girl in the world who could be a Slayer is one."

Angel let the shock register on his face. "_Every_ one?" he asked.

"Had to be all or nothing," Buffy said. "It was our best play – put as many big guns on our side as possible."

Angel nodded. "Yeah, short term," he said. He looked around at all of them. "I'm guessing that the issues with the long-term part are why you're here now."

"Lot of scared girls out there who need some help," Faith said, cracking her knuckles.

"Angel, we have no way of knowing how many of them there are, even," Buffy said. "There might be only two or three left, or there could be two thousand. The First wasn't done hunting them down; we hit before its could finish its plans. However many there are, we have to find them. With the Watchers council gone, whatever method they used to track Potential Slayers – and the active Slayer, for that matter – are gone. We need to start from square one, and we need to start yesterday."

Angel nodded. "I don't know of anything at Wolfram and Hart specifically that could accomplish what you're looking to do," he said. "But I don't exactly know everything about the firm yet." He looked up; Wesley was returning down the stairs. "Let me ask Wes. He's more the guy for this sort of thing."

Angel pushed back his chair and met Wesley at the foot of the steps. The two men conversed while Buffy, Giles, Faith and Willow waited. After a moment, they returned to the chairs. "I think I know a way," Wesley said. "It's not something you're going to like, Mr. Giles."

Giles looked at him in consternation. The grizzled, dark-eyed man standing in front of them in jeans and a leather jacket didn't even slightly resemble the bumbling junior Watcher who'd been carted away from Sunnydale High's graduation four years previous on a stretcher. "I'm afraid I don't have any idea how to read your tone of voice anymore. How much am I not going to like this?"

"The Box of Rixx," Wesley offered.

Giles instantly stiffened. "I wouldn't think that even Wolfram and Hart would have access to the Box," Giles said, in a tone that was forced and formal.

"It doesn't," Wesley said. "But we could contact the people who do. They might be able to help us."  
Giles was now staring without blinking at Wesley. "You're right, I don't like it," he said. "More to the point, I can't see how you think it's even remotely an option."

"Could we rewind a minute?" Faith cut in. "What's the Box of Risks? Sounds like a board game."

"The Box of Rixx is a mystical object that tracks certain supernatural creatures," Giles said. "Since the Slayer's power comes from demons, it could theoretically be used to track the Slayers. But it's a moot point, because the people who control the Box will never let us use it."

"Okay, I'll bite," Buffy said. "Who controls it?"

Giles sighed. "Wizards," he said. "British wizards."

After a moment, Faith, Buffy, and Willow all burst out laughing. "Wizards?" Buffy asked. "Do they wear robes and pointed hats?"

Giles pulled off his glasses and began to wipe them clean. "As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "And before you start judging, remember how I thought of your modes of dress when I first arrived. They consider themselves a culture apart, and most of them consider themselves superior. The Watchers Council had a very, very uneasy truce with them; since we didn't use magic – er, much - and only monitored the Slayer and demonic activity, they let us be, but only grudgingly. They made it very clear to us that if we weren't useful in keeping demonic activity to a minimum in the world, they'd have disposed of us long ago. They also made it very clear to us that if we ever started using magic on a regular basis, useful or not they'd eradicate us."

"Sounds like they're a peachy bunch," Faith said. "Why haven't anyone put them in their place?"

"Even one of them is enormously powerful alone," Wesley said. "Together they're quite formidable, and our best guesses put their population at several million, worldwide. The truce was preferable for both sides."

"That's why our trip to England required so much secrecy," Giles said, addressing Willow directly. "The coven aren't affiliated with the British wizard community. Wizards are actually a different breed of human entirely, and they aren't comfortable with other species using magic. Including humans who aren't like them."

"All right, we get it, these wizards aren't people we'd swap numbers with at a bar," Buffy said. "Why bring it up, then?"

"Three reasons," Wesley said. "First, they have a history of distrust with the Watcher's Council. The council is dead, gone. They have no history with us, and that gives us an advantage. Second, it's in their benefit. With the Watcher's Council gone, the dirty work the council did for them is being left undone. If we can step in and take that burden from them, they can do us a favor. And third, I happen to know someone in their government – his wife and I grew up not far from each other, and I think he may be able to help us."

"They have their own government?" Buffy asked.

"Yes," Wesley said. He walked over to the check-in counter and starting rooting around under it. "They use several rather odd forms of communication. Given the present disarray of the hotel I'm not sure we have – ah, there it is!" he pulled back, holding a small mason jar with a small amount of powder. "We'll need a fire to use it."

The group pushed back their chairs and followed Wesley outside. Wesley and Angel broke a few branches off the bushes, made a circle on the stones in the courtyard, and Wesley pulled out his lighter. The fire reared up quickly – the bushes were mostly dead after the prolonged lack of sunlight and so were quite dry – and when Wesley tossed in a handful of the powder, it leaped again, glowing green.

"I'm pretty sure I saw this at a rave once," Faith said, and Willow elbowed her.

Wesley turned back to the rest of them. "This may be a little distressing to watch," he said. "I'll be fine."

And, kneeling, he plunged his head into the fire. Buffy, Willow, and Faith all gasped. Angel and Giles both looked nonplussed. Wesley didn't react at all – he just kept kneeling, his head in the middle of the fire. Once her heart rate slowed, Buffy took the moment to walk over to Angel. "This doesn't seem to bother you," she pointed out.

"When you've been around as long as I've been, you run across a little of everything," he said, his arms crossed over the gray sweater he wore. "Ran into wizards a few times during the Angelus days. For guys who carry around wooden wands, they weren't very good at fighting vampires."

Buffy turned back to Wesley, still on one knee with his head plunged into the flames. "Sticking his head into a fire is something I'd totally have expected from Wesley back in Sunnydale," she said. "And now here he's doing it and he manages to make it look badass."

"Wesley's come a long way," Angel said. He stretched, an involuntary movement. "A lot of that way's been bad for him. For all of us."

"I hear that," Buffy muttered.

A moment later, Wesley pulled his head from the flames, and the green glow died. "We're in luck," he said. "Molly says several of her sons are right now in Montana. She's sure we'll be able to get the help we need from a man named Dumbledore."

* * *

By the time Harry was approaching the Burrow, his arms were exhausted from carrying both Mr. Weasley and his trunk. He'd thought about setting down quickly to rearrange things, but had ultimately decided that the quicker approach would be better all around. The adrenaline was still pumping through him, though, and he was fully alert, especially as, the closer he got to the Burrow, the more aware he became of an electric tinge to the air.

It kept growing and growing, causing the hair on his neck to stand on end, before finally he passed through a palpable field of blue electricity into clear sky about a half mile from the Burrow. As soon as the tip of his broom finished passing through the field, there was an audible snap and all trace of the blue electricity faded.

Harry pressed onward, feeling that he was finally safe, and landed just outside the Burrow's kitchen door. Behind the door, the familiar voice of Mrs Weasley sounded. "Yes, it was good to hear from you, too, Wesley. Arthur is due back any minute with a – er, friend of the family. I'll make sure the boys know what you're looking for."

Harry could hear a muted rush of flames, then a slight creak just as he was throwing off the Invisibility Cloak, then a high, youthful voice yell "Dad!" A second later, Ginny Weasley was kneeling by her father's side. "What happened?"

Relieved of the burden of carrying Arthur and the trunk, Harry sat back onto the grass, sensation stubbornly refusing to return to his arms and shoulders. "Voldemort," he said, and found himself breathing a great deal heavier than he'd thought he was. "Voldemort was there."

"Mom!" Ginny yelled. "Dad's hurt, come quick!"

A half second later the door flew open again and Mrs. Weasley came flying out. "Arthur?" she asked, her face pale. She quickly knelt by her husband, checking him over. "What happened?"

"Voldemort blew up the house just as Mr. Weasley was trying to take off," Harry said. Each word felt like a struggle to get out. _It's almost like I'm tired_, he mused to himself.

"Is he okay?" Ginny asked, her voice squeaking slightly.

Mrs. Weasley checked him over, feeling for a pulse and checking his temperature. After a moment, she nodded, and a great deal of the tension flowed out of her face. "He's fine," she said. "Maybe a few broken bones and a concussion, but he'll be fine."

"Phew," Harry said, feeling the world sway around him. "Thought it might be a little touch and go, you know?"

Ginny's head snapped up. "Mom, I don't think Harry's okay," she said.

Mrs. Weasley looked around the yard, seeing only Harry's Firebolt. "Harry, did you _carry_ Arthur all the way here?"

"Didn't have much choice, did I?" Harry said, a faint note of indignation creeping into his wavering voice. He still couldn't feel the grass beneath his arms. "His broom was knocked way the hell away by the blast and then Voldemort was standing over him and taunting me and I only had time to pick him and the trunk up. Might've killed me if I'd tried for the broom too."

"Might've killed - " Mrs. Weasley, said, her eyes filling with tears. "Oh, I'll hug you once you're conscious enough to understand what you're saying."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, swaying where he sat. "I can understand." The last word came out more like, "un-sher-shtand."

He only had time to see Ginny dart from her father's side to his and catch him as he fell – _good reflexes, that girl's got_ – before he passed out.

When he came to, Harry was laying in bed indoors, and Ginny was sitting at the foot of his bed. He stirred immediately and she laid a hand, gently, on his leg. "Easy, there," she said. "You've been out for three hours."

"Three hours?" Harry asked, groggy. He rubbed at his eyes. "Where - ?"

"The Burrow," she said. "This is Ron's room. We figured you'd be most comfortable here and we weren't sure if you'd sleep the day through or what. The sun rose while you were flying here."

"Is Mr. Weasley okay?" Harry asked, once his eyes had adjusted. He had to avoid looking at Ginny's hair; the contrast with Ron's red wallpapering sent his head spinning all over again.

"Yeah, he's fine, resting upstairs," Ginny said. She reached over to the table for a glass of water. "I just brought up the water, I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay," Harry said. "Ginny, what happened? What's going on?"

"That's – complicated," Ginny said. "There was an attack across the pond. It's bad. That's actually where all the boys are – Ron, Bill, George and Fred, and Charlie. Dad would have gone with them but he was tied up at work when it happened. Good luck, I suppose, since we got the word from Dumbledore right after the boys left that someone needed to get you, right away."

Harry pushed the covers off of himself to find that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Ginny cast a glance downward at Harry's chest, blushed, then looked away. "Uh, your shirt's over there. It tore a bit while you were on the broom and Mom mended it, but I think she figured you'd be more comfortable not wearing it in bed."

Harry bent over the bed, retrieved the gray long-sleeve t-shirt he'd been wearing, and pulled it over his head. Ginny stood as he kicked off the rest of the sheets and stood. "Are they back yet?" he asked.

"No, not yet," Ginny said. "International apparition takes time."

"Right," Harry said. "Look, I may have only slept three of the last twenty-four hours, but I'm wired and starving. Fancy a bite to eat before the adrenaline's gone and I crash again?"

Ginny smiled. "Sure thing," she said, and led him out of Ron's room and down the stairs.

The two grabbed sandwiches from the kitchen – _Mrs. Weasley never misses a trick_, Harry thought – and sat down in the living room. Harry scanned the familiar sights of the Burrow, but his vision fixed on the clock. "Why is Fleur's name on the clock?" he asked, seeing a new hand shining on the clock, which reported the whereabouts of every member of the Weasley family.

"Bill," Ginny said, simply. "They got married a week or so after term ended. Small ceremony in France. It was quite nice, actually – just the families, no guests or spectators. Also, no clothes."

Harry choked on his sandwich. "What?" he asked, trying to keep from spitting bits of it up in front Ginny.

"It's a veela thing, apparently," Ginny said, studiously avoiding Harry's eyes. "It was a little awkward at first, but we got used to it. And there was only one minor incident with Ron and one of Fleur's cousins and – well, maybe it's better if he tells you that story."

Harry laughed, wondering if Ron would stumble into bringing it up on his own. "So you went in for this no-clothes thing, too?" Harry asked. His gaze involuntarily moved up and down Ginny's small frame.

"Yeah," she said, still avoiding Harry's gaze. "You should have been there." As soon as the words escaped her mouth, Ginny went furiously red again. "Uh, I mean, because you were friends with Fleur and everything, and it's like you're already part of the family and everything. Only a matter of time before someone makes it official."

Harry smiled at Ginny's rambling. It'd been a while since she'd let herself get that flustered in his presence. "And how does one make it official?" he asked, thinking the lighthearted, joking question would lighten the mood.

Ginny got even more red. "Uh," she said. "Uh, well, only one way I can think of."

Silence descended completely between the two as Harry caught up. _The only way to 'officially' join the family would be to marry in_, Harry thought. _And Ginny's the only girl in the family. Oops_. Harry's own face went red and for a long moment, neither of them said anything.

"You know, that's not really how I'd meant that conversation to go," Ginny said, breaking the silence.

"Me either," Harry said. His eyes involuntarily scanned Ginny's figure again. She wore jeans and a spaghetti-strap shirt which hugged her body closely, revealing curves that Harry couldn't remember ever having noticed before. By the time his eyes made it back to Ginny's, it was clear that she'd been checking him out too, and that she was fully aware that he'd been checking her out.

"And here we are," Ginny said. Now her eyes wouldn't so much as twitch from Harry's. Harry wasn't entirely certain she was breathing.

Before he could say anything in response, the fireplace across the living room flared green, and several shapes started stepping out. Harry cast one last look at Ginny – promised himself they'd revisit that conversation in the near future – then stood to greet the incoming members of the Order of the Phoenix.

Ron, Fred, George, Charlie, Tonks, and Lupin all stepped through the flames and landed soundly in the Weasley living room. Each looked exhausted, covered in soot and grime, but upon seeing Harry, Ron's face lit up. "Hey, mate!" he said. "When'd you get here?"

Harry looked quickly back at Ginny, who shrugged. "That's kind of a long story," he said. "Where were you?"

"America," Charlie cut in, brushing a hand through his short-cropped hair. "Place called Montana. Nice place, except for the smoking ruins and charred bodies – lots of trees, wildlife."

"Ruins? Bodies?" Harry asked.

"The American Wizarding Academy," Lupin said. "America's version of Hogwarts. Not nearly as old, of course, and with a distinctly American twist on magic, but still – compatriots, of a sort. Voldemort attacked it last night. Well, more like this morning, our time. We went to try and help, but by the time we got there the battle was over and everyone was dead."

"Voldemort couldn't have been there himself," Harry said. "Was it just the Death Eaters?"

"Possibly," Lupin said, his eyes narrowing at Harry's words. "Why couldn't Voldemort have been there, Harry? Did you have another dream?"

"Yeah, that," Harry said. He swallowed. Best to just get it out in the open. "But then he actually showed up at Privet Drive. So he was in England while the whole thing was happening."

The six members of the Order of the Phoenix all stopped and looked around at each other. "He was _there?_" George asked.

"At your _house?_" Fred continued.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Everything's fine. Your dad got a little roughed up but he's okay – no permanent damage. He's resting upstairs."

The Weasley boys all went pale and rushed out of the room and up the stairs. Tonks walked over to the couch and plopped down next to Ginny, who smiled a hello. Lupin watched the Weasleys go. "Huh," he said. "Might be he'd planned this. He probably reasoned in advance that a big enough shake-up in the magical world, like destroying the AWA, would cause the magic protecting you at Privet Drive to destabilize."

"Destroying a wizard school has that much of an impact?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yes," Lupin said. "Wizard schools are wellhouses of magical power. The bigger, older ones – like Hogwarts or Beauxbatons – are obviously more powerful, but they're also better protected, and actually destroying the school itself would have been much harder. The AWA was the perfect target. Still, things should have mostly calmed down by now, and we're still experiencing aftershocks."

"Aftershocks?" Harry asked.

Lupin turned to face him. "When we tried to apparate back, the first time we wound up in Finland. That's why we wound up using the Floo system. It's a bit more – well, _solid_, for lack of a better term. It didn't get thrown off by whatever's destabilized magic."

"So you think there's something else?" Harry asked.

"Can't be sure," Lupin responded.

"I saw things, in my dream," Harry said. "I wrote them down, here." He withdrew the parchment he'd scribbled down the dream images on from his pants pocket and handed it to Lupin.

Lupin looked over the notes, shaking his head. "A few of these things sound like the AWA, but I'm afraid the rest is a mystery to me. Maybe Dumbledore will be able to put the pieces together once he gets back." He handed the crumbled parchment back to Harry.

"Where is Dumbledore?" Harry asked, accepting the parchment and replacing it in his pocket.

"Still in America," Lupin said. "We actually got a message from Mrs. Weasley that something important was happening in Los Angeles, so Dumbledore, Bill, and Fleur went to check things out."

"Hmm," Harry said. "You're right, we're missing several of the pieces."

Lupin scratched at his chin and regarded the Weasley family clock. Harry tracked his eyes and saw that he was staring at the "Mortal Peril" indicator. "We are," Lupin said. "Hopefully we'll be able to put all of those pieces together soon."

* * *

The school day done, Cassie made her way quickly to the Boathouse, Chance Harbor's wharf-side bar and restaurant, run by Adam and his father, Ethan. Parking her car in the parking lot and pushing into the door, she saw that she was the last to arrive – Faye, Melissa, Adam, and Jake were all already sitting at the table in the back corner. True to what Adam had said, the Boathouse was packed with other Chance Harbor High kids, all talking loudly and smiling and flushed. For a second, Cassie honestly couldn't remember what that was like or why they'd look that way, and had to blink several times to clear the disorientation and alarm that closely followed the realization.

"Over here," Adam called, unnecessarily, and Cassie forced a smile.

"I don't think she's blind, Adam," Faye said, the familiar arrogant ring of annoyance in her voice.

"Down, girl," Jake said, not bothering to look at Faye as he said it. Faye grinned nastily and elbowed him in the ribs. To Cassie's surprise, Jake smiled what looked like a genuine smile. _When'd that happen?_ She thought. She'd known that Jake and Faye had a tendency to get a little thrusty from time to time, but she'd never have thought they'd honestly try to rekindle their relationship. _Whatever. Insignificant detail. Focus on the big stuff_.

Cassie pulled up a chair and sat down. Melissa passed her a mug that was filled with a thick, creamy white liquid. "We weren't sure if you'd want chocolate or vanilla," she said, apologizing.

Cassie forced another smile for Melissa. The poor girl tried so _hard_ all the time. "Doesn't matter, I like them both," she said. She took a sip of the milkshake and nodded appreciatively at Adam, who beamed. _Nothing like taking pride in what you do, I suppose,_ Cassie mused. "So, anyone want to open up with first impressions on the new kids? I mean, did any of the others admit straight out that they're Balcoin?"

All four of the others lined in. "You're sure?" Adam asked. "I couldn't get a look at Mariah's hand. She wore fingerless gloves through the entire class and only hissed at me when I tried to introduce myself."

"Aw, did the trademark Adam Conant charm fail to seduce the waifish new girl?" Faye asked, cocking her head at Adam. "Guess you were a one-hit wonder at luring in new girls, huh?"

"_Faye_," Melissa hissed, taking her turn to elbow Faye in the ribs.

"What?" she looked at Melissa, who nodded at Cassie, who in turn was avoiding meeting anyone's eyes, least of all Adam's, who was doing the same. "Oh. Right. Still too soon?"

Melissa and Jake both rolled their eyes, and Adam and Cassie finally met each others' gaze. Adam's was sheepish and embarrassed and Cassie tried to rearrange her face quickly to match, but wasn't sure that what came out was convincing. "Anyway," she said. "Yeah, I talked to Michael. He didn't bother to deny it. Matter of fact, he beat me to bringing Blackwell up. They know he's dead."

"Are they pissed?" Jake asked.

"No," Cassie said, the same surprise she's felt earlier in the day still evident in her voice. "At least, he wasn't. I don't get the impression that they're that together, you know? He said they all have their own reasons for being here. The way he said it made it sound like those reasons are pretty different."

"What's his reason?" Melissa asked.

"Aside from being super-blunt and super-creepy? He said he 'wants to see what happens next.' Whatever that means – come to think of it, he didn't really tell me anything."

"Except that there's something coming," Jake said. "If he wants to see what happens 'next,' implies that there's going to _be_ something 'next.'"

"Yeah," Cassie said. "But without Blackwell...I don't know. Did anyone else manage to speak to one of them?"

"John Moore," Melissa said. "Bumped into him accidentally-on-purpose outside of gym."

"And?" Faye asked.

"Well, he tried to give me his number," Melissa said, blushing and avoiding the arch look Faye was giving her. "Couldn't see any sign of the mark on his hand, but I didn't get a real close look."

"That leaves one more," Cassie said. She looked around at the remnants of her broken circle. "Anyone meet up with him?"

No one volunteered an affirmative. Faye pulled a piece of paper out of her purse. "Well, his name's Abel Vaughn," she said. "All advanced placement classes. For a day – what's the point of that?"

"Had to put them somewhere, I suppose," Adam reasoned.

"Anyone have a game plan for how we approach this?" Cassie asked. "After everything that happened with Blackwell I really don't want to get caught unaware on anything again."

"Maybe we take our lead from your new friend Michael," Jake said, leaning back in his chair and stuffing his hands into his windbreaker's pockets. "See what happens next. The whole reason things with Blackwell went sour was that we got impulsive, jumped to conclusions. Maybe we just play this light and cautious and see what's happening."

"And watch each others' backs," Melissa said.

"Of course," Cassie said. "Okay, for now, we just wait and watch. Everyone agree?" No one one said anything against the motion. "Uh – meeting adjourned?"

"Excellent, I have enough time to get my nails done before the movie tonight," Faye said, pushing back from the table. Then she stopped. "Although I guess I could just do them myself now we've got our solo magic back."

Cassie thought of chastising the raven-haired girl but knew better than to think it'd get through. No one but no one ever told Faye what to do or, more importantly, what not to do. _Girl's just waiting to be played with reverse psychology,_ Cassie thought. _Maybe I should remember that. Just in case._

Faye finished standing, pecked Jake on the cheek (who smiled but looked awkwardly around at the rest of the circle), and weaved her way through the crowd to the Boathouse door. "I'm going to get another milkshake," Melissa said. "Anyone want anything?"

Jake nodded. "Sure," he said. "I'll help you get them." The two stood and made their way over to the bar, crowded with kids in khaki shorts and t-shirts with the same idea, leaving Adam and Cassie sitting at the table by themselves.

Cassie leaned in again to speak privately to Adam. "I meant to ask you earlier," she said, her voice just above a whisper. "How's hiding the crystal skull going?"

"Huh?" Adam asked. His eyes had glazed for a second at the mention of the skull.

"The skull? Magical weapon-of-mass destruction? How's hiding it going?" Cassie asked again, her voice a little louder to make sure Adam could understand what she was saying.

"Oh, fine," Adam said. "You're never going to have to worry about it again."

Cassie gave Adam a quizzical look. "Yeah, good to know _I_ won't ever have to worry about it again," she said. He just nodded, which made her brow crease further.

Before she could say anything else, Adam pushed back from the table too. "Well, I told my Dad I was just going to be talking to some friends for a few minutes, and that was about twenty minutes ago, and this is is one of the biggest days of the year here. I should go help pour." He grinned at her, and this time the smile she returned was genuine. He leaned over the table, resting a hand on it to face her. "If you want to call me tomorrow, we could go mini-golfing or something. What do you think?"

The smile vanished from Cassie's face. "Oh, uh," she stammered. "I have plans. Already. Tomorrow. Sorry, I can't."

Adam shrugged. "It's cool. Call me sometime anyway?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Cassie said. _How many times am I going to blow him off lamely before he realizes what's going on?_ Not for the first time, Cassie cursed, in the back of her mind, the potion that had removed Adam's love for her but hadn't managed to remove her love for him.

A second later Jake and Melissa returned, with four milkshakes in tow. "Uh, we totally forgot to ask you what flavor you wanted again," Melissa said. "Where'd Adam go?"

"Back to help out again," Cassie said, nodding at the bar where Adam had thrown an apron on and, laughing along with something someone he knew from school had said, started up a blender and grabbed an ice cream scoop.

"Guess you can pick from the two that are left," Jake said.

"I'm not really that thirsty," Cassie said, still staring at Adam as he scooped ice cream into the blender and started it running.

Melissa followed her gaze. "Have you talked to him?" she asked.

"No," Cassie said, breaking her self-imposed trance and looking down at the milkshakes. Purely to have something to do she picked up the untouched chocolate shake they'd brought over. "I can't," she said, fiddling with the straw. "The potion, you know. We don't have those feelings anymore."

"Right," Jake said, his usual slight edge of sarcasm sticking out in his tone.

"Maybe if you just talk to him," Melissa said. "You know, get him to open up - "

"I'm not sure what I'll find inside," Cassie finished. "Best to just leave that one alone for now. Really, I'm okay. The whole thing's just taken time to get used to. Anyway," she said, taking a sip of the milkshake, "what're you going to do with John Moore's number?"

Melissa blushed again. "I didn't actually take his number," she said. "My judgment with guys has been a little off since – for a while now. And he's your probably-evil half brother. It'd be weird."

Cassie rolled her eyes. "We don't know any of them are evil. Diana and I aren't evil. Blackwell wanted to use all of us. There's no telling what John's really like. You know, unless you get to know him."

"Didn't we just agree to lay low?" Melissa asked.

"Yeah," Cassie said. "Yeah, okay, fair point. But that doesn't mean you should rule things out."

"You really shouldn't rule things out," Jake blurted. Cassie and Melissa both looked at him, questioning. He rolled his eyes and smoothed his already-smooth hair. "Okay, sorry, it's hard for me to admit this, but – well, you guys probably knew Nick better than I did." Melissa and Cassie both stiffened to hear Jake bring up his dead brother, Melissa's ex. "But I still think he'd have wanted you to be happy. That's what he wanted for pretty much everyone, in the end."

Neither girl could think of something to say. Cassie scratched at the floor under the table and Melissa picked at a ding in the side of the table. Jake shrugged with his head only. "Anyway, that's what I think," he said. He stood. "I should go get ready for that movie, too."

Cassie watched him go. "I think Faye is thawing him out," she said.

Melissa frowned at her. "_Marvel_ at the concept."

* * *

Scott McHall cast a glance at the clock. Eight thirty. He'd just finished putting away a shipment of gauze – _so much gauze_, he couldn't help but think – and his shift was up. He pulled his phone from his back pocket – dutifully stored with the ringer and vibrate off – hoping to see a voicemail or a text from Allison, only to be greeted with a message from Derek. He scowled. Just two words: _meet me_. No location, no time, no asking how Scott was holding up after getting thrown through a building less than forty-eight hours before, no thank-you for rescuing him from his psychotic ex's torture-dungeon. Not even an apology for the epically bad-timed "that was too easy" that Scott couldn't help but blame for the rest of the evening's horror – Allison shooting Derek with her bow, Kate shooting Derek with her gun, Allison shooting the arrow at him that blinded him, Allison standing over him with the bow and that angry, hurt look on her face, her body language and her scent screaming _ANGER_ and _CONFUSION_ and...

Scott shook his head, trying to clear the images and the memories. After he'd finally left Allison the night before – she'd insisted he stay until she was asleep and it hadn't taken any goading to get him to – he'd headed home, wanting to collapse into bed, only to be cornered by his hysterical mother, whom he'd texted to say he was okay but hadn't actually seen since all hell had broken loose at the formal. She'd kept him up another half hour delivering half-measured lectures before she realized he'd completely checked out and was more or less asleep on his feet; she'd finally let him go to bed with the promise that they would discuss the matter more the next day. He'd managed to dodge her that morning, luckily, and head off to work.

He wouldn't have really minded the lecture – sometimes it was good just to hear her talk, Scott mused, although he'd never have admitted that to her – except that it'd have been obvious that his sleep had been deeply troubled. True to what he'd said to Allison, he'd had nightmares about the whole ordeal, in particular everything Allison had said and done up until she'd started to realize how far gone her aunt was.

_She said she loves you_, he thought to himself. _You know you trust her. What's going on?_

He shook his head again and pushed the whole thing back. It'd been a crazy day and maybe he'd just need some time to sort through everything. He turned his attention back to Derek's text. There really could only be one place he'd meant to meet, and it was time-stamped from fifteen minutes before, meaning Derek had at least had the courtesy to wait until the end of his shift to summon him.

_Summon me_, Scott thought, as he locked the door the building and pocketed the keys. _Is that what this is? My new _alpha_ is summoning me? Took long enough for the power to go to his head_. He looked at his bike in an appraising manner. It was about five miles from his work to Derek's bombed out house in the middle of the woods, but he was already right on the treeline. He could just slip into the forest, shift, and run there, and probably get there faster. And between the bad taste the summons had left and the frustration over whatever his head was doing to him in regards to Allison, he wanted to work his blood up a little bit before showing up at Derek's.

He made sure the lock was still secure on his bike – he'd swing back around to pick it up later – then tried to look casual as he strolled around the side of the building and into the woods. As soon as he was about fifty yards in, he turned to look and see if anyone was watching or if he'd been followed. Seeing no one, he inhaled heavily, letting the wolf's enhanced senses map out the surrounding area. If there'd been anyone around for a quarter mile they'd have lit up like a neon traffic cone when he inhaled like that; as it was, he could tell that there was no one around.

Scott began to lope through the trees, letting his pulse rise and not bothering to try and control the dark swirl of beastly rage that was just below the surface. Within seconds he felt the familiar itch that meant his claws were extending and he was growing extra facial hair. Curiously, whenever his fangs extended, there was no itch, just a sudden cold feeling in his jaw accompanied by a small ache right at the point where the fangs connected to his mouth. The shift complete, Scott began to really run, and eventually he dropped to all fours and padded quickly through the brush to Derek's house.

When he arrived, the house looked as deserted as ever. Peter's body had been buried, and aside from some burn marks on the ground it'd have been impossible to distinguish the wrecked state the house was currently in from the wrecked state it'd been in prior to the big fight. Scott had half expected police tape and a full investigation – two people had died here, after all – but between Derek and the Argents it seemed that the whole thing was getting covered up.

"Derek?" Scott shouted. "You know I hate when you do this mysterious lurker thing. It's not like you have a front door I can just knock on."

"I'll make sure to get a doorbell," Derek said, from behind him. Scott whirled. No way was Derek quiet enough to sneak up on him like that, not since Scott had started honing his werewolf senses. Only Peter had been that quiet. _Another alpha thing, great._

"Now you have jokes," Scott muttered.

"I figured I'd try to lighten the mood," Derek said, completely monotone and deadpan.

"Now I have something new to have nightmares about," Scott said. "You laughing."

"Come on," Derek said. "We have a lot to discuss. I wanted to let you get some rest last night, given everything that happened, but now it's really necessary that we talk."

"Yeah," Scott said. Derek pointed towards the splinters that had once been a front door and Scott followed him up the steps. Inside, Derek pulled a chair out from under the steps and set it down in front of the stairs, then reclined onto the main staircase himself. Scott sat down in the chair – a charred old folding chair. "So, fearless leader, what's so urgent?"

Derek scowled at the deferential nickname, but otherwise ignored it. "A few things," he said. "Let's take them one at a time. First, and I think foremost, is our issue with the Argents."

Scott stiffened. He should have been expecting this! If Derek thought for a second that he'd stop seeing Allison...

"Calm down," Derek said, eying the claws that had sprouted from Scott's hands before the second syllable in Scott's girlfriend's last name had finished leaving his lips. "I'm not going to tell you to stop seeing your little girlfriend."

"Oh," Scott said, the word slurred around his fangs. He looked down at his own hands again and, a second later, they were completely human. _Or at least a working facade of completely human_.

"Honestly, it probably wouldn't be completely safe to cut ties with her, not now," Derek said. "She's proven every bit as dangerous as her father. No need to piss her off."

"Great," Scott said. "Now you're pimping me out to the Argents to keep them off our back."

"You say that as though I'm forcing you to be with her," Derek said. "When she kissed you last night I could smell how both of your bodies reacted. Just make sure you use protection, and for the love of everything don't start getting sappy around me. I tear out your throat the first time you mention her eyes and the stars in the same sentence. Got it?"

Scott rolled his eyes, trying not to dwell on Derek's first sentence. He'd been right about it all, of course – the love, the need to feel close to her, to make her smile and laugh, and all of the sexual attraction was back, but it'd all brought something with it he still couldn't put his finger on. _Later_. "Okay, jokes aside – what do we do about the Argents?"

"I talked with Allison's father briefly after the incident last night," Derek said. "He agreed to clean up Kate's body and I told him I'd take care of Peter. He said that he considers us even for what happened last night – their code only gets upset over killing humans. Killing Peter didn't count. He said he'd leave us be."

Scott cut right by Derek's bitterness. "Do you trust him?" he asked.

"No," Derek said. "Never. You wouldn't either, if you weren't an idiot. For now, though, your idiocy is going to work in our favor. You're so sincere it hurts, and I think Argent will respond well to that. At least he'll be able to think he's playing you successfully."

Scott sneered at him. "Thanks for the vote of confidence," he said.

"Argent's not really the main problem," he said. "It's something else he said. He said that others would be coming as a result of Kate's death. That's going to be trouble."

"Others?" Scott asked.

"What, you thought the Argents were alone in this?" Derek asked. "This country has a thriving subculture of rough, angry men and women who run around killing people like us all the time. Most of them are criminals, pulling scams to get money while they get their rocks off murdering us. Argent at least claims to have his 'code' – you can believe what you want about that, I'm still skeptical – but most of them will kill us on sight. If a group of them is on the way we could be in serious trouble."

Scott nodded. "Okay, I guess that makes sense," Scott said. "What do we do about it, though? I'm not hearing plans, Derek, just lots of bad news."

Derek nodded. "You're starting to catch on," he said. _Approval? No kidding. Didn't think the robot had that setting_. "The answer comes back to the other thing we have to discuss. Expanding the pack."

That took a moment to sink in, then Scott was on his feet, the chair blown clear out the broken doorway. "No way are you biting anyone else!" he yelled.

"Scott, would you _please calm down!_" Derek hissed, sitting forward at Scott's sudden aggressive posture. "Try, just for a second, to remember that you know jack shit about being a werewolf and that you need to keep learning before you let that righteous temper out."

"Sorry!" Scott said, angrily. The golden glow slowly faded from his eyes, and the hair on his face receded, but his claws didn't want to go away. Scott didn't care. He folded his arms and stood facing his new alpha, claws biting into his own forearms. "So what _does_ that mean, Derek?"

"Lydia Martin," Derek said. "Peter already bit her. She's changing."

Scott shook his head. "Stiles and I checked her out at the hospital after the fight last night," he said. "Her cuts aren't healing like mine did. I don't think it took."

Derek rolled his eyes and clenched a fist. "Scott. You don't know what you're talking about. Please try to remember that." He unclenched his fist and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "The change is different for women. It's slower, for one thing. She'll heal better than either of us eventually, but it'll take longer for her to get there. Trust me, she's already one of us."

"What happens next, then?"

"She'll wake up," Derek said. The angry stare became even more penetrating. "One of us has to be there when that happens. These comas that female werewolves go through – waking from them is more like birth than what happens to male werewolves. It's very traumatic, and..."

"And a traumatized werewolf in a hospital full of people who don't have a clue what's going on is a very bad thing," Scott finished.

"Yeah," Derek said. "I want you to keep an eye on her. I'm a little more conspicuous hanging around the hospital."

"Good point," Scott grudgingly admitted. "What'll you be doing?"

Derek licked his lips. "It's called 'siting,'" he said. "It's a thing alphas can do to attract lone werewolves. We're stronger in packs – always – but between hunter attacks, in-fighting, and just life in general, plenty of werewolves wind up on their own. If we can pull a few in, we can strengthen our position here, not to mention give them some peace of mind. I'm going to focus on that. I already started, last night; I think we may already have one on the way."

Scott clenched his claws closer. He didn't want to say the next thing. "And biting people...?"

Derek scowled at him. "We won't be doing that," he said. "Like I said, I don't trust Argent, but I don't want to give him an excuse to rally the troops. It'll keep them on their toes if we present ourselves as picking up the pieces of what Peter started here while taking in a few wayward wolves, giving them shelter and stability. No bites – not even to people who ask."

"Who would - " Scott started to ask, but then his claws bit his skin again so deep he drew his own blood. "Jackson," he said.

"Jackson," Derek confirmed. He almost smiled. "He circled back after everything last night. Begged me to change him, too. I let him get a good look at the teeth and he ran. He'll probably be back eventually, though. Under other circumstances I might consider giving him what he wants – once I made sure he fully understood what it meant, don't give me that look – but for now we just can't risk it."

"I can't believe you'd consider doing this to someone, willing or not," Scott said.

Derek shook his head, a disapproving look on his face. "I was born like this," Derek said. "I was raised like this, by a family like this. Being a wolf was just a part of who we were. None of us were disgusted by it the way you are. We took precautions; we were careful not to hurt people, because we all knew we'd be better at than the average person and none of us wanted that on our consciences. But that didn't make us evil. It doesn't make us evil now. You're not a monster, Scott."

Scott attempted a smile for Derek's sake, probably the first time he'd done so for the older werewolf. "Yeah," he said. "Of course."

Derek shook his head. "You know, you keep carting around all that self-loathing, it's going to start playing tricks on your head."

"I've got it," Scott said, a little more harshly than he'd intended.

Derek shrugged. "Your problem," he said. "Just make sure to keep an eye on – what's that?"

Scott swiveled his neck. He'd just heard it too. Three car motors, racing towards them.

* * *

"Right. Thanks," Sam said, and clicked his phone shut.

"What's the deal?" Dean asked.

Sam frowned at the wording. "That was Ellen," he said. "Said the hunters we're meeting are at the local hospital. We should head there. Oh, and some girl showed up looking for us at the Roadhouse, right after we left." He paused, scowled. "Jo said she was probably one of your conquests. Looked all doe-eyed when she asked if the Harvelles knew where to find us." He paused as Dean turned the car down a street. "Dean, about the deal," Sam began.

Dean groaned. "Sorry, I'll make sure to avoid that phrase in the future."

"It's the future I'm worried about," Sam said.

Dean leaned back slowly, stretching tense muscles. "Leave it be, Sammy," he said.

"Ignoring the issue isn't going to help!"

"Harping on it isn't either," Dean said. He pointed out the Impala's window. "Look, we're here."

Dean parked in a small parking lot offset from a squat building marked with the big blue H signs that identified it as the local hospital. He and Sam climbed out of the car, stretched, and went back around to the trunk. "This part's just a meeting," Sam said. "I don't think we need to go in with an arsenal."

Dean opened the trunk anyway. "If there are werewolves in this town I'd rather be prepared." He pulled a handgun out of its holster and kissed it. "Oh, baby, it's going to be just you and me now. No more pain-in-the-ass century and a half old revolvers, just a few good shots and a few dead monsters. It'll be – Sam, what's wrong now?"

Sam was staring at the white handled gun and breathing heavily. "Nothing," he squeezed out.

"Sam, come on, what – oh," Dean said, remembering suddenly what Sam had had to use the very gun he was holding for not too long ago. Sam watched as the memory flooded back over Dean's face. "Sam, I'm sorry. Maybe – you know, right now, given everything that happened in San Francisco – maybe this isn't the right job for us. We could call Ellen and see if she's got anything else. I'm sure these guys have got this covered."

Sam grit his teeth. "We do what we _have_ to do," he said. "I'm going to have to be fine with that at some point. Might as well start now." He picked up a handgun of his own, checked the clip, and slid it into the back of his jeans, covering it with his shirt. Dean was still looking at him, not saying anything, and Sam sighed in frustration, shut the trunk, turned and marched towards the hospital.

It wasn't hard to figure out where to go. Once inside both brothers overheard people talking about a girl who'd been attacked by a wild animal at a school dance the night before. Sam and Dean looked at each other, unspoken agreement passing between them, and they hopped an elevator to the third floor.

The girl's room had a large window. Standing outside were four men in jeans, denim, and leather. "Three guesses who they are," Dean muttered. "You think there's some kind of dress code for doing this?"

"Yeah," Sam muttered back. "It's called Salvation Army."

Dean laughed, which brought up the faces of the four hunters standing in front of the girl's room. Dean's face instantly shifted from smiling laughter to serious and solemn. "Hello, gentlemen," he said. "My name's Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam. We're looking for some – colleagues – we've never met. Think you can help us out?"

One of the men stepped forward and stuck out his hand. "Name's Weatherby," he said. "These three are Collins, Smith, and Ash."

"Pleasure to meet you guys," Sam said. _He's British_, he thought. _Can't remember the last time I met a British hunter._ Sam nodded at the glass. "Is she going to turn?"

Weatherby smiled, an action which seemed to cause his eyebrows to incline. _He looks like an angry dog_, Sam thought. _I guess that's ironic_. "Right to business," Weatherby said. "I appreciate that." He turned back to the girl's window. "We're not sure about Lydia here. She was definitely attacked by one of them – found on the football field covered in cuts and passed out, thing probably put on a pretty face and lured her there for a shag – but it's too early to tell if she'll turn. Takes longer for the bitches, you know?" He laughed, a short, cough-like sound. None of Weatherby's friends laughed and Sam and Dean didn't find it funny either. Weatherby let the laugh hang for a minute before scowling at them. "Anyway, our man in his town is on his way here now. We're going to have a little chat with him and then we'll go and get this taken care of. You boys care to wait with us?"

Weatherby indicated the chairs that lined one of the walls, and all six men sat down. Dean introduced himself to a couple of the others and they struck up a conversation about nothing at all. Sam just sat, trying not to picture a different face on the small body that lay in the room across the hall.

A few minutes later, the elevator opened and a grizzled, physically fit middle-aged man stepped out. Weatherby, seeing him, stood; Sam quickly got to this feet as well, noting the contemptuous look Weatherby was giving the man. "Hello, Argent," Weatherby said. He did not offer a hand to the man. "It's been a long time."

"Only about three years," the man, Argent, replied. He looked Weatherby up and down. "Could have been longer and I wouldn't have minded." Sam hid a smile. Weatherby just scowled, a look that gave his face more lines. "So, the council finally decided to take an interest?"

"Council's gone," Weatherby said. "We were the ones who took an interest. Figured you'd dug yourself into a mess here and would _appreciate_ us digging you out."

"What do you mean the council's gone?" Argent asked. He eyed Sam, who shrugged.

"Gone," Weatherby repeated, clapping his hands suddenly together in front of him. "Headquarters – and the whole senior council – blown up. Watchers scattered, dozens of Potential Slayers murdered. It's been a real mess. We're on our own now."

Argent seemed to swallow that information carefully, like one does with a bite of food that's too big but has to go down anyway. "Why would you care, then?" he asked, clearly still processing what Weatherby had just said.

"I heard that sister of yours was working the case. We've worked together a couple of times the last year. Wanted to lend a hand."

Argent swallowed, for real this time. Sam looked to Weatherby. "You don't know?" he asked. "Ellen knew. She must have heard after you left..."

Weatherby looked from Argent to Sam. "Knew what?" he asked, a stupid look on his face.

"Kate's dead," Argent replied, looking down. "Killed last night. I knew she'd called you in for help, so I tried calling you off at the Roadhouse, but Mrs. Harvelle said you'd already left."

Weatherby stood, mute for a moment. Sam jumped in. "We're terribly sorry to hear about your loss," he said, addressing Argent. He'd wanted to tack on the man's name, make it more personal, but he wasn't sure if 'Argent' was his first or last name and wasn't sure how it would sound coming out of his mouth.

Argent looked up, looked Sam in the eye. _Clearly getting the measure of me,_ Sam thought. "Thank you," Argent replied.

"We should go after the beasts," Weatherby said. Sam turned his gaze back to the shorter British man. His hands had balled into tightly-clenched fists. "Right now. Round them up and put silver in their hearts."

"Stay calm, Weatherby," Argent said, slowly pushing his hands into his pockets. "There's nothing to be gained by going off half cocked."

"Sure there is," Weatherby replied. His eyes were twitching. "They'll be dead."

Sam thought for a second about stepping over to stand next to Argent, thought better of the message it'd send. "I think we should listen, Weatherby," he said. "We need to scope the situation before we rush in."

"To hell with the situation!" Weatherby yelled. "Kate was – she was special. You know where they're hiding, don't you, Argent? Always had a nose for rooting out their nests or dens or whatever they call them."

A nurse walking by gave Weatherby a worried look. Sam put an arm on the man's shoulder. "Maybe we should take this conversation outside. We're still in a hospital. A very public hospital."

Argent nodded. The three, with the other four men behind them, entered the elevator. During the ride down, Sam heard Weatherby mutter, "the public can kiss my ass."

Outside in the parking lot, Weatherby immediately lit back into Argent. "Out with it, Argent!" he said. "Where are they? I can't believe you'd protect the things that killed your sister."

"The ones that are left didn't kill my sister," Argent replied, coolly. "The one that killed my sister is already dead. Killed by one of the other ones, actually."

"Ugh, so what?" Weatherby asked. "We'll bag all of them tonight. Now _where are they?_"

Argent looked at Sam, whose brow had steadily been furrowing deeper the longer Weatherby spoke. "I don't know," Argent said, just as coolly, but Sam could tell he was lying by the significant look he cast toward the younger hunter. "They've likely gone to ground, anyway."

"Well, let's do some _investigating_," Weatherby said, through gritted teeth. "Where did Kate die? And don't tell me you don't know that."

Argent looked at Weatherby for a long time. "Fine," he said, finally. "I'll take you there. But there won't be anything to see, I can guarantee you that."

Argent got into his SUV, glowering as Weatherby chose to get into the passenger side. Sam and Dean headed quickly for the Impala, jumped in, and followed Argent's SUV out of the hospital's parking lot.

"I get the feeling that Argent there knows more than he's letting on," Dean said.

"Definitely," Sam agreed. He pulled his pistol out of the back of his jeans and started checking it over again. "But I wouldn't have told Weatherby anything either. Hell, I probably wouldn't have told him my name if we'd known what he was like before hand."

Dean nodded, reluctantly. "Yeah," he said. He laughed weakly. "Funny, though, I could hear myself saying a lot of the stuff he said up until recently. I'm getting kind of tired of finding people who are supposed to be on our side who are out their freakin' minds."

Sam agreed, silently.

The drive didn't take long, leaving them parked next to a clearing in the woods, in which stood a half-burned old house. "That looks promising," Dean muttered.

"That house was clearly burnt years ago," Sam said. "There's definitely more going on here than we're being told."

Both of the hunters climbed out of the car, the doors squeaking loudly as they were shut. Argent and Weatherby were already out; the other three men men were piling out of the van they'd driven as well. Weatherby had produced a handgun himself, and, self-consciously, Sam and Dean both drew their guns.

"You should know, Chris, that Kate told me a few things about this case when she phoned," Weatherby said. Dean raised an eyebrow at the new name, but Sam just shrugged. _I guess 'Argent' is his last name, then_. "Described a little of the lore. That's the old Hale house, isn't it?"

"Yes," Chris Argent said. Reluctantly, seeing that all six of the men around him were now carrying, he pulled a gun from his jacket pocket. "The house that Kate burned down. With innocent people inside."

_What the _hell_ have we gotten ourselves into here?_

Weatherby waived it off. "They were werewolves," he said. "Doesn't matter who burned the house down. Fact is, though, that Derek Hale was staying here. And now this is where Kate was killed, too. I've got to think that he's probably still around, wouldn't you?"

"I'm sorry," Sam interjected. "Who is Derek Hale?"

"One of the wolves," Weatherby said, before Argent could answer. "Bet he's the one who killed Kate. She said he'd always had it in for her."

"I already told you," Argent said, and Sam could tell that the patient facade was starting to slip. "The one who killed Kate is dead. And I very seriously _doubt_ that Derek would hang around this place after a _hunter_ was _murdered_ here. He's not an idiot."

Weatherby sneered and started walking up to the house. "We'll see," he said over his shoulder.

"And when Kate said that Derek 'had it in for her,' I'm not sure you fully appreciated the double entendre," Argent muttered.

A folding chair lay slightly mangled directly in front of the house. The door itself was in pieces, the frame stuck halfway open and barely recognizable. Slowly, each man pushed his way through and into the house. Sam and Dean both looked around once they were inside. Not a sound came from the inside of the house. All the telltale signs of destruction and abandonment were littered about. Dean nodded at a spot and crouched; Sam followed, tracing his finger over the floor. "Blood," he said.

Weatherby walked over and examined it, too. Argent stood over them, his face made of stone. "This is where it happened," he said.

Weatherby looked up the stairs. "And there's no doubt Derek would have wanted to hang around to gloat over the kill," he said. "Come on out, Derek. Let's a have a chat, puppy to pistol."

The other three men began to spread out, looking over the house. Sam and Dean poked their way into a room off the main entrance, to find that the room was only half there; about three feet beyond the doorway, the charring became much worse and the house just suddenly seemed to fall away. Sam shook his head. _Poking around like this isn't going to do any good,_ he thought. _We have to draw them out_.

As Sam turned, he saw Ash standing under an exposed beam from the second floor, examining a cracked floorboard. The beam buckled and, a half-second later, came crashing down. "Ash!" Sam yelled, pushing Dean out of his way to try and make a leap to push the other man to safety, but he was hopelessly far away.

A blue and tan blur hit Ash from the side just before the beam struck the floor, splintering that section into a million tiny pieces. Sam and Dean quickly stepped around the fallen beam to find a young man with fur and claws rolling off of Ash. Neither of them was seriously hurt.

"You saved him," Sam said, looking down at the transformed werewolf and feeling a small part of his world crumbling away. _The kid's shifted and he just put himself in danger to save a person. That should _not_ be possible_.

Weatherby, Argent, and the other two arrived and Weatherby pointed his gun at the young man on the floor. "Wait!" Dean said. "The kid just saved Ash's life."

"Sure he did," Weatherby said, pulling the hammer back on the gun.

"No, wait!" Sam said, stepping between Weatherby and the young werewolf. "We know what we saw. That beam would have crushed Ash if the kid hadn't knocked him out of the way."

"That's not a kid," Weatherby said, staring at Sam as though seeing him for the first time. "Move, Sam. There's a silver bullet waiting for the "kid" inside this gun, and if one of its brothers has to go through you first, I won't lose any sleep tonight."

Dean put his own gun up to Weatherby's head. Instantly, Collins and Smith had their guns trained on Dean. Argent, looking furious and conflicted, stepped back, lowering his own weapon. For a moment, no one moved; Sam was pretty sure no one breathed.

"All right," Sam said. "Let's all think about this for a second, okay? We're all on the same side here. No one needs to get hurt right now. We need to just take a minute and figure a few things out, okay? How about we all put the guns down and do that?"

"No way am I putting my gun down with _that_ in the room," Weatherby said, nodding toward the kid on the floor, who was staring hard at Weatherby's gun. _He's just a kid_, Sam thought, looking over the teenage werewolf's jeans and sweatshirt.

"How about we put it this way," came a voice from the shadows. "Put down the guns, or I put down each and every one of you, one at a time. Slowly."

The assembled hunters all glanced around, but there was no sign of from where the voice had come. "Another one?" Dean asked.

"That's Derek," Argent said, looking around. Slowly, he bent and placed his gun on the floor of the house. "The one on the floor is named Scott. Derek is...bigger."

"And I've got the jump on all of you, in _my_ house," Derek's voice sounded again. It seemed to come from all around them. "So why don't you listen to the big guy in the middle and put down your guns, before I start getting angry."

Dean, Smith, and Collins all immediately bent and deposited their weapons on the floor, leaving just Weatherby standing with his pistol pointed at Scott, by way of Sam's chest. Weatherby was sweating, the barrel of the pistol twitching just slightly in his grip. _I could count the scratches on the end of the thing_, Sam thought. A floorboard to their right creaked and everyone glanced over; at the same time, another blur, this one blue tinged with red, hit Weatherby's arm from the other direction. The gun went off, but only after Weatherby's arm had been displaced, and the shot went wide. The gun itself went flying. The blur kept moving and disappeared.

Instantly, Smith and Collins bent and retrieved their weapons, pointing them into the shadows that filled the upper part of the creaky old house. "Relax," Derek said, again seemingly from everywhere at once. "If I'd wanted I could have taken his throat away as well as his gun. We're not interested in dead humans. Now I think it's time to play a new game. Get out of my house, leave Scott and I be, and we'll call it all even."

"Bollocks on that!" Weatherby shouted from the floor.

"I'd highly suggest listening to him," Argent said, his voice completely even.

"This is a freakin' madhouse," Dean said. He glanced at Sam.

"So much for getting warmed up again," Sam said.

"I don't know, Sam," a soft, feminine voice from the door said. "I think things might be just about to get hot."

Everyone, Scott included, turned to look at the owner of this new voice. The downward spiral that had started at seeing Scott behaving like a human being while transformed picked up speed, as did Sam's heart. He blinked once, slowly, to make sure his eyes were working correctly.

They were. Madison was standing in the doorway.

* * *

A/N : And...there's chapter two. These chapters are freaking huge! And this one didn't even have a Craig POV sequence. I'm thinking maybe of splitting the POV sections into their own chapters – tell me what you think in the review section.


	3. Part One, Chapter 3

A/N: So, twenty-three thousand words, two chapters, and no reviews? I'm starting to think no one's actually reading this. Oh well, guess we'll see. Remember, I'm considering splitting these chapters up smaller (by each section) since each chapter so far has been, well, huge. And I'm thinking of changing the title – the current one is a little verbose and I'm starting to think that just "Cold Skies" would do nicely. I'd love some feedback. For now, though, enjoy.

CHAPTER THREE

"Who the bleeding hell is that supposed to be?" Weatherby asked, from the floor.

Madison, in response, did just about the worst thing possible – she hissed, her face shifting and claws lengthening. The site of the partially-transformed girl wolf was too much for Collins and Smith; they opened fire.

All hell broke loose.

Sam and Dean both moved as soon as the shooting started towards the two men with guns. Madison vanished from the doorway almost as though she hadn't been there at all. The blur that had knocked Weatherby down materialized at the top of the stairs and leaped into the air, growling, his own fangs and claws showing. Weatherby dug in his back pocket and came up with another gun, firing at the shape flying down the stairs. As the shape –_ Derek_, Sam guessed – descended and Weatherby shot at him, the younger wolf on the floor – _Scott_, Sam thought, trying to keep all the new names straight – climbed quickly to his knees and swept a kick into Weatherby's arm, knocking the new gun flying. Argent backed up to against a wall, not participating. Ash looked stunned.

Derek landed just as Sam and Dean hit Collins and Smith. The two British hunters seemed surprised to find that Sam and Dean weren't on their side; both men took the first punches Sam and Dean threw right on the chin, without any defense. To their credit they both remained standing and refocused their attention after only a split section. They both blocked the next punches and threw parries of their own. That fight may have lasted longer if Derek hadn't intervened. Landing directly behind the two British men, he picked them up by their collars, gave them a single great shake that dislodged the firearms from their hands, and then tossed them sideways into the crumbling walls of the house on either side of the room.

Meanwhile, on the floor, Weatherby turned to face Scott and pulled a knife from his belt. He slashed the knife at Scott, cutting a line against the younger wolf's chest. Scott howled and swiped at him. Weatherby rolled away, out of Scott's reach. Scott moved to follow but buckled forward, clutching his chest.

Weatherby climbed to his feet, holding his knife in front of him, and backed to the wall. He was facing Sam, Dean, and a very angry-looking Derek. Weatherby was breathing heavily. Argent shook his head. "Not thinking tactically," he said. "You're here on the enemy's territory, and for all you knew you were outnumbered, and you just barged in."

"You should have told me there was more than one!" Weatherby hissed back at him.

"Remember what I said about scoping out the situation?" Sam asked.

"Shut up, traitor," Weatherby spat.

"Traitor?" Dean asked. "I know you Brits are all about that old-world kind of crap, but isn't that a little extreme? We met you two hours ago."

Derek cocked an eyebrow but didn't say anything. His gaze fell on the knife Weatherby still held defensively in front of himself. In a flash Derek was standing directly in front of Weatherby, holding his wrist in a vice-grip and twisting. "Let me see that knife," he said.

Weatherby was clearly shocked at Derek's speed, just enough so that the pain took an extra second to register. Once it did he gasped and dropped the knife. Derek caught it before it hit the ground, lifted it to his nose, and muttered, "Silver..." under his breath. Then he looked back down at Scott.

The young wolf was still clutching his chest, where the silver knife had cut him. He'd shifted back to his human form and was sweating profusely. Sam could even see that the boy had started to shake a bit. Derek knelt quickly by his side, murmuring to himself. "You have to let me see, Scott," he said, an almost gentle inflection to his voice.

"Where'd Madison go?" Dean muttered. Sam shrugged, his heart re-increasing in rate at the mention of the clearly not-deceased werewolf's name. Sam glanced at the door, the last place he'd seen her. He wanted to go looking, but wasn't sure how the big, angry wolf kneeling next to the younger one would take it. And the situation really didn't need to be ignited again.

Speaking of which, Sam noticed that Weatherby was withdrawing yet another weapon from his belt. _Guy's a one-man armory_, Sam thought. Weatherby's eyes were trained completely on Derek's back. He was pulling another knife out. Argent was watching this, not moving, not doing anything. Sam, quietly, walked over to Weatherby. "Let's leave this be for now," Sam said, placing a hand gently over the one in which Weatherby held the knife. "It'd be you one-on-one against him. I doubt you could surprise him, even from behind, and he'd clean you up."

Weatherby sneered deeply at Sam, but replaced the knife in his belt.

"I highly suggest that you all leave, now," Derek said. "And do _not_ come back. You're all alive right now. That will not be the case if you return." He turned to look up, not at Weatherby but at Argent. "There are already more of us," he said. "We can defend ourselves."

Argent nodded. "I knew it'd be that way, Derek," he said.

The two British men who'd been tossed into the walls were picking themselves up slowly. Ash was climbing to his feet, too. Argent grabbed Weatherby by the arm and dragged him towards the door, the other men following. Sam hesitated, walked over to Derek instead of following the other hunters. "What part of 'leave' was hard for you to understand?" Derek asked, still focused on examining Scott's wound.

"We helped you back there," Sam pointed out. He nodded at Scott's wound; even though Derek wasn't facing him, he felt that the werewolf could still sense the gesture. "And we could help with that."

"We take care of our own," Derek said. "Your interference back there was insignificant. I'd have handled the two of them just as easily without it. And I can't say that I care one way or the other about a pair of hunters who have suddenly grown consciences."

"Suddenly grown consciences?" Dean muttered.

"Look, that girl who was here a little while ago," Sam started.

"Is under my protection now, too," Derek said.

"That's not it at all," Sam said, laughing weakly. "She's – we're – I don't even know, it was something. I just need to find her."

A hand on Sam's shoulder from behind made every muscle in his body tense. The hand was small, light, but there was an undeniable strength flowing through its musculature. He'd felt it before. "It's okay, Sam," Madison said. "I'll find you later. And I'll explain everything. For now you have to get out of here."

Sam turned to face her. "How is this possible?" he asked, reaching to take Madison's hand in his own. "I shot you. You should be dead."

Madison opened her mouth to reply, but before she could Sam was on the ground and Dean was pointing his gun again at Derek, who'd shifted and thrown Sam clear of Madison in an instant at Sam's words. "Stop!" Madison yelled, more at Derek than at Dean. "It's not what you think. I asked him to."

Derek did stop. "You _asked him to?_" he asked. His fangs remained.

"It was a confusing time," she said. "Look, can we all just talk about this once we've all calmed down? Sam, Dean, get out of here, we need to take care of the little one. I'll meet up with you tomorrow. I promise."

Sam tried to protest as Dean nodded, pulled him to his feet, and led him out of the crumbling old house, but Derek's blow had knocked him senseless. He couldn't formulate words until after Dean had loaded him into the Impala, gotten in himself, and pulled away from the house. "That was Madison," Sam said, sounding completely stupid and not caring.

"Yeah," Dean said, all gruffness.

"How?" Sam asked.

"Don't know," Dean replied. "Guess she'll explain that tomorrow, like she said."

"I shot her in the heart, Dean," Sam said. His head was beginning to shake. "I watched her fall over. Her eyes were open. Her pulse was gone. I checked it all over. She was dead."

"I checked her too," Dean replied. Sam turned to look at him. _I didn't know that_. "She was dead. This shouldn't be possible."

Sam fought the urge to laugh; he knew it'd sound hysterical right at that moment. It probably would have been hysterical. "I'm starting to think we need to stop considering what's 'possible' and what isn't in our lives," he said.

Dean nodded, all gruffness again. "Yeah," he said. "Maybe that's not bad advice."

Sam's brow furrowed. "You don't look happy," he observed. "I mean, that wasn't exactly fun, but Madison's alive and apparently not a monster. That's all good, right?"

Dean shook his head. "You heard what Derek and Argent said to each other. I think we might have just heard them declare war."

* * *

Scott was trying to keep his eyes in focus but it wasn't working. A girl stood over him. He couldn't make out the details but he knew who he wanted it to be. "Allison?" he asked.

"Afraid not, kid," the girl said, kneeling beside him. A second later she was joined by Derek, who Scott could recognize easily enough through the fog. _Figures I can still make him out like this, but not a pretty girl_, Scott thought. _I wish Allison was here. _"What's happening?" the girl asked.

"Silver poisoning," Derek said. "The knife that bastard slashed him with was pure silver."

"What do we do?" the girl asked.

"Nothing," Derek said. "This much won't be enough to kill him." _Oh, good_. "But he's going to be sick and in pain for the next three or four days. This is his first exposure, so it'll be the worst." _Oh. Not good_. "Help me move him. We need to make him comfortable."

As soon as Derek and the girl tried to move him, Scott felt a sharp, horrendous pain in his chest, where the man with the knife had slashed him. The pain flare made him thrash for a minute. He could feel Derek and the girl trying to hold him, to keep him from thrashing, but then the pain was too much and Scott blacked out.

When he came to, there was sunlight streaming in the room. Initially, disoriented, Scott thought he was at home in his own bed. Then he realized that whatever room he was in, it was missing half a wall. He tried to sit up but was hit by a waive of weakness and nausea and collapsed back onto the pillow.

"Good morning," Derek said, sitting in a charred chair across the ruined room.

"What - ?" Scott began to ask.

"Silver poisoning," Derek said. "The knife that British guy hit you with was made of pure silver. Silver's the worst – it's worse than Wolfsbane, worse than anything. Luckily, he only nicked you."

Scott felt at his chest. His entire body was shuddering uncontrollably. He felt like even the act of lifting the sheets would be beyond him. He felt congested and like his ears were blocked with cotton. "This is the lucky version?" he asked.

"Yes," Derek said. "Believe it or not. You'll be fine in a few days. Until then I think you need to stay here so we can keep an eye on you."

"I can't stay here!" Scott choked out. It'd been meant as a yell. "What about my Mom?"

"I called Stiles," Derek said. "He's going to think of something."

"He's going to think of something," Scott said, shaking his head. "That's it? You don't have anything beyond, 'he's going to think of something?'"

"I don't care," Derek said. His usual monotone had slipped and he just sounded tired. "I don't mean to be cruel, Scott, but you're not really on the same page with your mother anymore, and you never will be again. It might be better if you just cut her out of your life. It's an extra worry we don't need, and associating with you can only get her hurt from here forward."

Scott laughed, a sound which wasn't much different from the choking yell of a moment before. "And how do I 'cut her out,' exactly? She's my mother."

The monotone reappeared in Derek's voice. "We fake your death. And you come and live out here with the pack."

Scott's head spun. He grunted with the weight of Derek's words. _Abandon Mom?_ He thought. _First Dad, now me._. Scott and his mother had had their problems – her communication skills weren't exactly great, and he'd always been able to dodge uncomfortable conversations by bringing up uncomfortable things from her own past, but he still loved her.

Derek raised his hands. "You don't have to decide anything now," he said. "For now you just need to rest. I know this is all hard to wrap your head around, but you have to rest to get better, and you can only really do that here." Derek stood. "I'll be around, so yell for me if you need anything. There's a glass of water on the table. Try not to drink it too fast. And yes, I left you your cell phone. It's okay to call Allison. It's not like her father won't be able to guess where you are."

Scott's head was still cloudy but he could still feel the familiar indignation rise. "I don't need your permission to talk to Allison," he said.

"You missed a lot last night on account of that injury," Derek said, an ominous tone in his voice.

"I saw that Mr. Argent wasn't getting involved in the fight," Scott shot back. "I think he's going to leave us alone."

Derek shook his head. "Once upon a time I thought like that too," he said. "But now I know better. He was sizing us up, Scott. He wanted to see if we'd defend ourselves. After the whole debacle it was pretty clear we would, but I needed it be clear that we would, for the sake of the new arrival."

"New arrival?" Scott asked. "You mean that girl?"

"Her name's Madison," Derek said. "I've asked her to keep an eye on Lydia for us. She'll understand what Lydia's going through better than we would anyway. Madison hasn't come straight out and said she wants to join the pack, and I think that's because it's only half the reason she's here. She's got some kind of history with one of the hunters who was here last night."

"Like a vendetta?" Scott asked, wondering if the word would sound childish coming from him.

"No," Derek said. He scratched his head. "At least I don't think so. I think it's more like what you're playing at with Allison – some sappy, doomed romance that they'd thought had already reached its conclusion. They all thought she was dead, Madison included. I don't know, she wasn't exactly forthcoming with details. I get that it was painful."

"Can we trust her?" Scott asked.

Derek nodded, approval on his face again. "You're asking the right questions, at least," he said. "Yes, I think we can trust her. She didn't have any of the telltale physical signs of deception and reading her tone and body language I'd say she didn't come her to hurt anyone. Then again," Derek said, the scowl deepening on his face until he looked like an old man, "I've been wrong about that before."

The statement hung in the morning air of Derek's ruined house – _of Derek's ruined life_, Scott thought. "It's going to be okay, Derek," Scott said, before he'd even really thought about it.

Derek snorted. "You're reassuring me?" he asked. "Guess you must have hit your head, too." Scott resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at the older werewolf. Derek sighed. "Give her a call. I can practically feel your hand itching to go for the cell phone. Then make sure you get some rest." He stood and was gone.

Scott reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, noticing a new chip in the corner, presumably from when he'd landed after pushing the old hunter out of the way of the falling beam the night before. _Smooth move there, Scott_, he said to himself. _Have to stop helping the people trying to kill you_. The phone indicated he had twenty-two missed calls – six from his mother, three from Stiles, and thirteen from Allison. He hit the button for voicemail and listened through. A few from his mother were just her telling to call, getting increasingly agitated. Mostly the same thing from Allison, although she sounded near tears in a couple. One was from Stiles, earlier that morning, acknowledging the message from Derek and stating that he'd take care of Scott's mother. Somehow. Scott grimaced. That didn't sound good.

He hit his address book and scrolled to Allison's name. She picked up on the first ring. "Scott?" she asked. She sniffled. "Where are you? What's going on?"

"Slow down," Scott said. "I'm okay. Uh, mostly. I'm at Derek's."

"What happened, Scott?" Allison asked, and he could hear again that she was on the verge of tears. "When you didn't answer your phone last night I tried calling your mother and she was all upset because you never showed up at home last night, and then my dad got home late and when I asked if he'd seen you he got all quiet and wouldn't answer any of my questions. I've been up all night worrying. What the hell is happening?"

"There was another fight," Scott said. "There are more hunters in town. Derek and I were meeting at his house and your father and the hunters showed up."

"Oh, my god," Allison said. "Is anyone - ?"

"No," Scott said. "No one died. The hunters got tossed around, and I've got a pretty awful cut, but no one died."

"Shouldn't it be healing?" Allison asked. "The cut, I mean?"

Scott cleared his throat. "It would," he said. "But it's from a silver knife. I guess that takes longer to heal. I'm kind of stuck in bed here."

"I'm on my way," Allison said, and before Scott could protest, she'd hung up. He rolled his eyes. "Hey Derek," he shouted. "Allison's coming over."

"Of course she is," Derek's voice floated back, from an indeterminate point somewhere in the wrecked house. "Remember what I said about sappiness."

It only took fifteen minutes for Allison to arrive. Scott heard the car skid to a stop, her door slam, and then pounding as she entered the house. "Scott?" she called. "Where are you?"

"Up here," Scott said, leaning over the bed to try and project better. A second later Allison pulled the door open and stepped inside. She gasped when she saw him. "Am I that bad?" Scott asked, trying to force a smile.

"You said silver did this?" Allison asked.

"Yeah," Scott said. "Yet another lovely werewolf revelation. Silver's everywhere and apparently werewolves are allergic or something."

Allison fingered her necklace, then reached back, unclasped it, and threw it into the forest, through the hole in the wall. Scott looked at inquisitively. "It was made of silver," she explained. "Every piece of jewelry my family's ever given me was silver. I always thought they just didn't realize there were other things necklaces and bracelets could be made of or something silly like that."

"Oh," Scott said.

"Can I see the cut?" she asked. Her eyes were wide and she looked scared.

"Yeah," Scott said. Carefully, having to use way too much effort, he pushed the sheets that covered him down to reveal the slash across his bare chest.

"Oh, Scott," she said, striding forward and reaching a hand out towards the slash, which still gave every appearance of an open wound. At the movement, Scott instantly shrank back into the bed, the involuntary action using more strength than he'd have been able to use consciously. Allison caught the motion and stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes welling just slightly. "It's okay if you don't want me here," she muttered, turned as it to go.

"Wait," Scott said. "I'm sorry. It was just a reaction. I'm sure it'd have happened with anyone." _Anyone who'd been standing over me with a bow in my face two nights before_. Scott couldn't help the thought but beat it back as soon as it welled up. "I want you here," he said. "Please come here."

She turned back to him, uncertainty in her eyes. Slowly – _trying to look non-threatening_, Scott guessed, with a sigh in the back of his mind – she walked over and sat next to him on the bed. With some effort, he found her hand, and gently placed that hand on his chest, right above the cut. Her hand was cool against his damp, shuddering, burning skin. "That feels better," he said. She removed her hand and bent slowly, pressing a kiss to his chest. Scott closed his eyes, let the shivering pleasure of the kiss travel through his body and ease the poison-induced shuddering. "Much better."

Gently, again, she raised her feet on to the bed and curled up against Scott's side, her head tucked into the crook his shoulder, one arm laying across his chest, under the gash. Within moments both of them were asleep.

* * *

Buffy glanced at the clock beside the bed in the room she'd finally let Wesley show her. She'd slept about five hours, a record for the past few months. She glanced at the window. Bright sunshine. _Right_, she thought to herself. _Time to deal again._ She pulled herself up and glanced at herself in the mirror that hung over the room's desk. She hadn't changed since the fight and her clothes were a complete mess – tears, dirt, blood, and the scent of having been worn through sweaty, stressful times. _But, of course, all of my clothes are now buried in the middle of the crater that used to be Sunnydale_, she thought.

The room had a private bathroom and shower. When Buffy pulled the door open – marveling for a moment at the luxury that went into _not_ having to share such amenities with a house full of potential Slayers – she found a bag on the counter, with a note pinned to it. She pulled the note off and read:

Buffy,

I figured you guys didn't have time to pack before everything went down in Sunnydale. I'll have one of the W&H accountants swing by tomorrow to cut a check for the other Slayers to pick some things up, but for now I could remember your size well enough and it doesn't look like anything's changed, so I figured I'd just leave a couple of things for you, until you can pick something out for yourself.

Angel

Buffy smiled. The clothes were simple – a pair of denim jeans and a light gray sweater – and Angel, probably out of either embarrassment or ignorance, had neglected to provide her with new underwear – but it was still a sweet gesture. Buffy showered quickly, resiting the urge to bask in the shower that was hers alone, and threw the new clothes on.

When she got downstairs, a man in a suit was sitting in one of the folding chairs in the lobby, staring daggers at Faith, who was sitting across from him, staring right back at him the same way. "Hello," Buffy said. "Who's this?"

"He's from Wolfram and Hart," Faith said. "Said he's here to give us some money on Angel's orders."

"Yeah, Angel left me a note about that," Buffy said. "So we can take everyone out and replace all of the stuff we lost when Sunnydale took its mondo nose dive."

Faith scanned Buffy's figure quickly. "I see he left something for you already, too," she said. At the 'too' Buffy returned the gesture, looking Faith up and down and realizing that she was wearing an almost-identical ensemble of denim jeans and a gray sweater. _Slow down with the jealous-ometer_, Buffy thought. _It's nothing_. Faith stood. "Can I talk to you, you know, over there or something for a minute?"

"Sure," Buffy said. She nodded to the Wolfram and Hart accountant, who nodded back, the look on his face never changing.

Faith pulled Buffy around behind the hotel's counter. "I don't like this," she said.

"I can tell," Buffy replied. "What's wrong?"

"Why'd Angel send a flunky?" she asked. "Why not come himself? He can't write checks?"

Buffy shrugged. "He's probably busy or something," she said. "He's running a law firm now."

"An _evil_ law firm," Faith pointed out. "You do know that Wolfram and Hart is evil, right?"

Buffy sighed. "Giles told me a few things on the drive down," she said. "He was doing that neutral-passive thing that meant that he was worried that Angel's gone off the deep end – you know, again – but he didn't want to say it because he knew it'd make me angry."

Faith eyed the Wolfram and Hart accountant like she'd typically eye a vampire, a look that worried Buffy. _Don't go psycho on me now_, Buffy thought. _That guy's probably just a human being who picked up the wrong flier at a career fair._ "I'm worried about him, too," Faith said. She rubbed at her fists. "I've fought Angelus, and if this is Wolfram and Hart's play at bringing him back out..."

Buffy put her hands on her hips. "Like I haven't fought Angel's better half?" she asked. Faith gave her a dirty look at the wording. "Look, we just have to trust that Angel knows what he's doing, at least until he gives us a reason not to."

Faith shook her head. "Angel's all about redemption," she said. "What about taking over Wolfram and Hart redeems anything? We all know that company is way, way beyond redeeming."

Buffy gave her a hard look. "I'd have said the same thing about you, once," she said. Faith flinched. "As a matter of fact, I did. Angel proved me wrong. And anyway, being in charge of Wolfram and Hart means he can help more people. Like us." A figure stepped through the hotel's ruined doorway. "See?" Buffy asked. "Wesley. Not a flunky. Right?"

Faith didn't answer.

"I've sent for a contractor to come in and repair the door," Wesley said, as Buffy and Faith crossed back around the reception desk to greet him. "I had another chat with Molly, my friend in the British wizard society, this morning. She's set up a meeting between us and this Dumbledore fellow. He's wrapping something up in Montana, but he'll be able to meet us here at about noon. That gives us a few hours to get you all outfitted. Muldoon here has an embarrassingly large expense account that's one hundred percent yours."

"How large is embarrassingly large?" Buffy asked.

"Have you ever wanted a twenty-foot statue of yourself made of pure gold?" Wesley asked. "He could buy you two and still pick up dinner for half the state of California."

"Will you be coming along too, Wes?" Faith asked. Buffy shot her a glance out of the periphery of her vision; there was still a noticeable edge to Faith's voice.

"Yes," Wesley said, and Buffy could feel Faith tense rather than relax. _What's that about?_ Buffy thought to herself, but filed it away. "I'll be Wolfram and Hart's representative at the meeting with Dumbledore. Angel's tied up with other things but he wanted to make sure we had someone present who knows our capabilities and can offer our full support."

"We appreciate it," Buffy said, but she could see that all of Faith's face was covered in worry.

A half hour and a bleary-eyed breakfast (although Muldoon hadn't fed half of California, he had brought something called "Gourmet Take-Out Breakfast," which Giles had said was a contradiction in terms until he'd tasted it, Buffy reflecting the whole time that only LA would have something so tacky and grandiose) later, the Slayer Army boarded a small fleet of Wolfram and Hart limousines and were wisked away to one of LA's upper scale shopping centers. True to Wesley's word, Muldoon's expense account was huge – Buffy'd heard him mutter at one point that they were spending "roughly the GDP of a lesser-known dimension" - and, after only a couple of hours, the Slayers made their way back to the hotel with a large number of bags. As they walked back into the hotel Buffy could see the girls smiling and talking and laughing amongst each other – _like normal girls_, Buffy thought – and she couldn't help but smile too. Maybe all it took to get them back a sense of normalcy was give them superpowers.

Wesley, muttering that the contractor should have been by to fix the Hyperion's front door by then, glanced at his watch. "We're a little late, actually," he said. "Dumbledore and his people should be here soon, if they - "

He didn't finish the sentence. With a wooshing sound, four figures suddenly snapped into existence in the middle of the hotel's lobby. The reaction from the Slayers was instantaneous – each of them dropped the bag she was holding and dropped down into a protective stance. Rona seemed to pull a knife out of thin air; Vi, on the stairs, took hold of the railing, ready to launch herself over.

Buffy, who'd also readied herself for a fight the instant the atmosphere inside the room had shifted, examined the figures. Three were male, one female; one of the males, clearly the youngest, lay on the floor at the feet of the other three, apparently unconscious. One of the men and the woman both looked to be around Buffy's age, maybe a little older; he had a great deal of red hair and a skull earing, she long, silky blonde hair and a narrow, slender physique. The older man had a large mass of white hair and a crooked nose. The three standing wore black robes; the boy on the floor black trousers and a black t-shirt.

The man with all the white hair looked around at the assembled, battle-ready Slayers. "Well, well," he said. "This is a somewhat warmer greeting than I was expecting."

Wesley stepped forward. "I'm Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," he said, extending a hand to the older man, who took it. Buffy watched him shift the stick he was holding to another hand in order to grasp Wesley's. "Molly Weasley is our mutual friend. I'm sorry, we're not used to how you travel. Things appearing out of thin air around here usually means we're about to be attacked."

"Well," Dumbledore said again. "I can assure you, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, that we are not things. We're simply here, as you requested, to talk."

"Certainly," Wesley said. He glanced around at the Slayers, none of whom had backed down. "Girls, could you lay of the hostility a bit, please? This is the man we were expecting."

None of the girls budged. Wesley looked to Buffy. "Okay, everyone," she said, letting her own muscles relax. "Settle down. This is what we're here for." The Slayers all allowed themselves to relax too. "If any of you want in on this meeting, the floor will be open. Otherwise, just relax for a while and we'll let you know what the next move is."

Most of the Slayers, their eyes still wary, drifted up the stairs. Rona, Kennedy, and Vi all came down to stand with Buffy, Faith, Xander, Willow, Giles, Andrew, Dawn, Wesley, and the four wizards. Wesley indicated the folding chairs. "I'm sorry," he said, addressing Dumbledore. "We had a slight – well, near apocalypse recently, and we've been having some difficulty repairing and refurnishing the facilities."

"Would you prefer something more comfortable to sit in?" Dumbledore asked, eying the chairs. Wesley raised an eyebrow. Dumbledore swung the stick up and muttered something in Latin that Buffy didn't catch. A jet of blue light sailed out of the thing in Dumbledore's hand, hitting one of the chairs, which hopped in place, changing into a large, cushioned chair. Instantly, several more similar chairs popped into existence, until there was enough for everyone. "There, that's better. Now, if you don't mind, I'll just conjure something for Craig here to lie on while we discuss. While, from what I understand about him, he probably wouldn't mind the floor, I find it rather undignified, don't you?"

He extended the stick again and again, there was a flash of light and the young man who'd been on the floor was laying on a cot, set back against one wall. "Who is he?" Buffy asked.

"A survivor," Dumbledore said, shortly. "But that's not why we are here. I understand you are in need of services only we can provide. I must admit to being somewhat intrigued to have been contacted by a Watcher; however, if it was not for Molly's good word for you, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, I admit that I would not be here. Please explain how we might help you – and why."

"For that explanation, professor," Wesley said, "I'd like to turn you over to Buffy Summers. Up until yesterday, she was the Slayer."

Dumbledore cast his gaze over to Buffy, appraising. "Yes, the Vampire Slayer," he said. "We have, of course, heard of you in Britain. I understand we owe you a debt of gratitude for services rendered against a hell-god named Glory, am I correct?"

"Well, that was a few years ago," Buffy said. She felt like scratching at the floor with her shoe. _Damn it, this is not the time to flash back to high school! Don't be intimidated!_

"At any rate, you have our thanks," Dumbledore said, bowing his head. "However – and you'll forgive my ignorance on the matter – but I was under the impression that once one becomes the Slayer, the only way to cease being the Slayer is to cease breathing. How could you no longer be the Slayer if you are still alive? You are remarkably beautiful, for a corpse."

"Thank you," Buffy said. The man had a playful tone of voice, but under it was an edge of hard, solemn seriousness. _If this doesn't start going our way fast he's going to leave us high and dry and never lose sleep over it_, Buffy thought. "And you're right, the only way to stop being a Slayer is to die. I didn't stop being _a_ Slayer, I stopped being _the_ Slayer." She cast a glance at Faith, who grinned, albeit weakly. "Well, actually, that happened a long time ago, but – well, here's the thing – yesterday we did some magic. As a result of that magic, today, every girl in the world who had the potential to be the Slayer has received that power."

"I see," Dumbledore said. An unspoken message passed between him and the man with the red hair. "That's quite an accomplishment. It must have taken an enormously powerful witch to accomplish something like that."

"Yeah, the best," Buffy said, and Willow blushed. "She's - " She stopped at a look from Wesley. "She's the best," Buffy finished, weakly. "But now we need your help. All over the world, girls are waking up today with powers they'd never thought of having. They need help – they're going to be targets for demons and vampires pretty quickly. We don't have the capability of finding all of them, or even a small fraction, in an efficient time frame. According to Wesley, you do have that capability."

"Ah," Dumbledore said. "So you want to use the Box of Rixx to track down all the newly-risen Slayers in the world. And then do what?"

_Huh,_ Buffy thought. _Hadn't really thought that far ahead_. "Explain to them what's happening," Buffy said. "And give them a place to go to live with other Slayers, train, and be safer than they'd be on their own. Honestly, we haven't planned everything out yet. For now we just know that we owe it to these girls to track them down and help them through what's happening to them."

"I'm going to help you," Dumbledore said, spreading his hands out in front of him.

"You are?" Buffy asked. _That was way too easy_.

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "But with conditions. The first, and most important of which, is that we'll be needing your help with our present conflagration."

"We're not going to be your private army," Faith said, rubbing her fist again.

"Nor would I ask you to be," Dumbledore said. "Our community is currently engaged in a war with a most evil man. If everything that's said about the Slayer is true, surely you'd lend your assistance even without our having to ask. Amongst other things, Voldemort's forces employ vampires against both magical and non-magical targets."

Buffy looked to Wesley and Giles. "What do you know about this Voldy-more?" she asked.

Wesley and Giles looked at each other. Wesley shrugged. "Not much," Giles said. "I remember a few vague details about a dark British wizard by that name, but he was defeated and killed a decade and a half ago."

"That," Dumbledore said, "is an unfortunate but popular misconception. He was not killed all those years ago, just greiviously wounded, and he has now returned to finish what he started."

"Which is...?" Faith asked.

"World domination," Dumbledore said. "Eventual extermination of all non-wizard species, including wizards who have some non-magical ancestry." Faith whistled.

"I hate to be the prude of the bunch," Rona said, all eyes turning to her. "But can you prove anything you're saying about this guy?"

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Certainly," he said. He rose from his chair, the others following suit. He walked back to the cot that the young man, Craig, lay on. "Craig here was a student at the American Wizards Academy. Voldemort's forces destroyed it yesterday."

Wesley and Giles both snapped up sharply. "The AWA is gone?" Wesley asked. "_Completely_ gone?"

"Yes," Dumbledore said, drawing the stick again and not turning to face Wesley. "Craig was the only survivor, and that seems to have been more accident than anything else." He muttered a single word under his breath and the young man began to stir. He turned to face Buffy and the others. "We can only question him for a moment. We gave him a potion for dreamless sleep, and this spell will activate only his subconscious mind, allowing him to continue sleeping. Consciously reliving what he has endured would, at this point, be inadvisable."

"Lay off the psycho-babble," the young man, Craig, said, looking directly at Dumbledore. "I'm awake."

"Craig?" Dumbledore asked, a note of alarm in his voice for the first time. _Good_, Buffy thought. _I want to see how he reacts to the unexpected_. "You're fully awake?"

"Yeah, and my head is splitting," he said. "Don't suppose you have one of those nifty sage packets that makes headaches go away, do you?"

Dumbledore smiled, but his brow was still creased. "I'm afraid that's a somewhat different type of magic than that which I preform," he said. "However, I can dull some of the pain." He waved the stick and Craig nodded, rubbing at his forehead. "I'm not sure why you've come fully back to consciousness, Craig, but we need to ask a few questions about what happened at the AWA."

Craig nodded some more. "Yeah, figured," he said. "Ask away."

Wesley stepped in immediately. "You were a student at the Ameriacn Wizards Academy?" he asked.

"Yup," Craig responded. "Not their a-list pupil when it came to using wands and all that, but I had – er, other talents."

"And the school is gone?" Giles asked, from behind Wesley.

Craig sighed. "Yes," he said. "It's gone."

"Can you tell us what happened?" Buffy asked. She didn't fully understand what was happening here, but she'd filed away all the questions she'd ask Giles and Wesley later so that she could focus on the details of the here and now.

"A dragon," the young man said. He patted a leather pouch that Buffy could tell contained a long, jagged knife. "I took that down. But then there were men in masks – skull masks, on broomsticks. And vampires! Hundreds of vampires. I killed as many as I could but then the dorms blew, with everyone in them – and...and..." the young man clutched at his head. "Skye! Oh God, she was in there! I have to – I have to – I can't, oh, I have to get back..."

Dumbledore stepped up immediately and waved the stick over Craig's head. The young man collapsed back onto the cot. "I'm afraid that's as much as we should risk talking to him right now," Dumbledore said. "As I said, I'm not sure why he came so far back to consciousness in the first place, but he needs a lot more rest and direct psychological attention when he wakes up. This is not the place for that."

"Do you mind if we talk alone for a minute?" Buffy asked Dumbledore.

"Certainly," he said. He walked back over to the chairs, followed by the red-haired man and the willowy beauty, who'd linked hands. Buffy watched them go, then turned to Giles and Wesley.

"You guys are the only ones who can make heads or tails of all this," she said. "Talk to me."

"The American Wizards Academy is – was, I gather – a school for wizards, similar in some ways to the school that Dumbledore himself runs in England," Giles said. "Before you ask, Dumbledore and his lot would have nothing to gain from destroying the school themselves. They were allies."

"Can we confirm that the school really was destroyed?" Buffy asked, her gaze settling on Wesley.

Wesley nodded, pulling out a cell phone, and began dialing numbers.

"What about the rest of the kid's story?" Faith asked Giles, while Wesley put some distance between them to make his call.

"I don't know much about this Voldemort character," Giles said. "I do remember reading reports of wizards with a sort of racial mania, and Craig's description – men on brooms with skull-shaped metal masks – fits the description of Voldemort's followers. The Death-Eaters, they were called."

"Sounds like a punk band," Faith muttered.

Wesley snapped his phone shut. "It's confirmed," he said. "The AWA is really gone."

Buffy looked around at her assembled friends. "It sounds like this Dumbledore is on the level," she said.

"Hold on a sec, Buff," Xander said. "Do we really want to throw ourselves into the middle of another war, now? Didn't we just get finished fighting the last one?"

"I don't know that we have much of a choice in this one, Xand," Buffy said. "Dumbledore has something we need. And everything I'm hearing makes it sound like Voldemort and his followers are the kinds of people we should be taking an interest in stopping."

"Xander has a point," Willow said. "Plus, we don't know these guys at all. We shouldn't go making any deals."

Buffy shook her head. "We're going to need to be bolder than that," she said. "Look, I'm not saying we marry the guy. But, for now, we listen to his terms and see if they'll let us check out their operation. If we like what we see then we throw in for the wizards. Faith, what do you think?"

Faith's head jerked around and her face twitched. _She wasn't expecting that_, Buffy thought."Uh," Faith said. "I mean, everything I've heard sounds like this Voldy guy is one I'd like to throw down on, but I'm more of a 'see it, then punch it' kind of girl. I'm with Buffy. Let's check this out further and then make a decision."

Buffy smiled. _Faith just took my side over Xander and Willow_, she thought. _We are so going to Hell._

Buffy and the others walked back over to Dumbledore. "We're not ready to commit to a war," Buffy said. "We've just come off of one of our own and we don't know you well enough for that. Yet. We'd like to see more of your operation before making our decision."

Dumbledore nodded. "That does sound prudent," he said. "I would likely decide in a similar fashion, in your situation. Very well, we can take four of you with us back to Britain. Who will come?"

Buffy thought for a second. "Giles, Willow, and Kennedy," she said. "Faith, I want you and Wesley to hold things down here. We'll check things out across the pond and let you know what our next move will be."

The assembled Scoobies nodded. Dumbledore nodded to the red-haired man. "Bill, if you and Fleur would be so kind as to bring one each of these people along with us, I'll handle Craig and the remaining two," he said. He looked at Buffy directly. "Or form of transportation here is called Apparition. We teleport directly from location to another. It will require physical contact."

Buffy nodded. The red-haired man stepped up to Kennedy. "Careful, dear," he said. "I'm a married man."

"You're kinda not my type anyway," Kennedy said. She took hold of his robes and the two disappeared. The willowy young woman grabbed Giles by the arm without a word and the two of them disappeared as well. Willow and Buffy each took hold of one sleeve of Dumbledore's robes and, with a sensation like a jerking motion from behind the navel, Buffy felt herself leave the Hyperion Hotel, and America, behind.

* * *

Harry Potter felt a cool breeze across his face and smiled. His trip from Little Whinging carrying Mr. Weasley aside, life just felt better like this, on his broom in the air. He closed his eyes for a moment and just let the air play off his face.

And was almost immediately interrupted. "Come on, Harry," an annoyed feminine voice interceded. "Are you going to help us practice or what?"

Harry opened his eyes and angled his broom downward so he was on a straight level with Ginny and Ron, about thirty feet off the ground. "Sorry," he said. "Anyway, do you think it's fair of me to be helping? Gives you an unfair advantage over everyone else who's going to try out this year."

Ron shook his head. "That's the _point_, mate," he said. "Come on, who do you want on the team? A bunch of blokes you barely know? Or your best friend and his little sister?"

Harry looked at Ginny, swept forward on her broom, her jeans and t-shirt form-fitting and the lines of her body well-defined. The pose they all took when riding a broom had a faintly sexual connotation to it, Harry decided, another fact which had never occurred to him until then. Their half-conversation of the other day returned to Harry. _I don't think she's just Ron's little sister anymore_, he thought. _Dunno how far down that road I want to go._

He shook his head. "Right," he said. "Okay, let's get to work, then. I'll run you through a few of Wood's old drills and we'll see how to proceed from there."

For the next three hours, Harry did as he promised, subjecting Ron and Ginny to a number of increasingly rigorous flying drills. By the time he'd run out of drills to run, Ron looked ready to collapse, but Ginny, a rose tint in her cheeks the only betrayal of all the physical exertion she'd undergone, looked ready to keep going.

"Have mercy," Ron said, panting. "I think I might be going to die, right here."

"Come on," Harry said. "I think that's enough for now."

"Maybe that's enough for my brother," Ginny called, swooping a loop around Harry. "I still have a little more in me I want to work off."

"Have it your way," Ron muttered, pointing his broom back toward the Burrow. "Harry, make sure to get her back before dark. We have to get her fitted for her straight-coat."

"It's called a 'straight-jacket,'" Harry called after the retreating form of his best friend, who just waved backwards as he slowly descended toward the house.

"Come on, I'll race you," Ginny said, positively vibrating with energy.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Okay," he said. "To that big oak tree and back. On three. One - "

"Three!" Ginny yelled and took off. Harry grinned and streaked off after her.

Exuberance aside, Ginny was still riding one of her brothers' older brooms, a Cleansweep 5. Harry's Firebolt allowed him to overtake the younger redhead, beat her to the tree, and then circle back to where they'd started, winning the race.

For a second, Harry wasn't sure how Ginny would handle being beaten. He knew that the Weasleys almost as a rule seemed to be a competitive bunch; Ron in particular couldn't stand losing at anything. He was relieved to see that Ginny was smiling, although she did look down at her broom in consternation. "I really have to get a better broom," she said. "Charlie worked two summers as a Ministry page in order to buy the Cleansweep 7 he flew as Seeker for Gryffindor his last couple of years. Of course, it'd been a brand new model at the time."

"You handle that one well," Harry observed. "It might not be as fast as the Firebolt, but maneuvers well, and pure speed isn't everything for a Chaser. Anyway, if memory serves, that's one of the brooms Fred and George used to use when they were on the team, so it can't be all bad."

"It's not all bad," Ginny said, rubbing at the handle with some affection. Harry swallowed, glad that the altitude and wavering nature of sitting midair on a broom made it difficult for Ginny to see the look on his face. "But I can think and see and react faster than it can. I know I can be better if I have a broom that can keep up with me."

Harry shrugged. "Makes sense," he said. "You could always see if Fred and George would take you on at the new joke shop."

"Fat chance," Ginny said. "They've hired two girls to work in there already. They're nightmares – don't greet customers, don't ring up purchases correctly, don't restock shelves. When Bill asked what qualifications they'd brought Fred said they were the two who'd looked best bent over the counter."

"I think that's enough flying," Harry said, a little dizzy.

Ginny nodded. "Okay," she said.

The two spiraled back down to the ground, landing lightly. _Pull yourself together,_ Harry thought. _Like you thought earlier, she's more than just Ron's little sister. You're going to hear her talk about things like that from time to time._

"I'm sure they'll pull through," Harry said, slinging his Firebolt over his shoulder. "They've got a pretty decent business sense most of the time. You know, Bagman aside."

"That's the thing," Ginny said, resting her broom along her shoulder blades, winding her hands around the edges and stretching. "Whenever they have a lapse it tends to be enormous."

Harry found himself shrugging. "Guess we'll see what happens," he said. The two started walking back toward the Burrow. "Think we'll get a chance to visit the shop?"

"Dunno," Ginny replied. She began twirling a bit of her hair around a finger, a motion which Harry couldn't seem to bring himself to stop watching. _What is going on with me?_ he thought to himself. Ginny noticed the attention, as well as the cloud that passed over Harry's face. "What?" she asked.

"Ginny, about that conversation we were having the other day..." Harry started, his heart rate picking up.

Ginny stopped in her tracks. "Yes?" she asked.

"Uh," Harry said. "I – well, I don't know, really," he admitted. "I don't feel like we were finished saying whatever we were saying and I didn't want to leave it there."

"You didn't?" Ginny asked. The twirling resumed, picking up pace.

"No," he said. "I'm not entirely certain what I'm saying right now, to be honest. I think I may have misplaced my brain during our race."

Ginny's face fell. "So you think it's crazy to be talking about – that – with me," she said.

"No!" Harry said, closing the gap between them involuntarily. _She has great eyes, _Harry thought. _Nah, she has great everything. Oh, this is so bad. Ron is going to kill me. _"That's not what I meant at all. I'm just not good at this sort of thing, you know? I don't really have anyone to steer me around the curves, so to speak."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth Harry wished he could pull them back. Both he and Ginny went deep scarlet. Ginny placed the twigs of the broom on the ground and leaned on the handle, looking at the ground, while Harry's grip tightened on the Firebolt until he almost felt like it might crack. _Smooth!_

"That's not at all what I meant to say," Harry said. He muttered a conclusion. "But it does rather prove my point."

After a moment Ginny tore her gaze from whatever incredibly fascinating rocks she'd been studying in minute detail to look Harry in the eye. "I know what you mean," she said, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. Which caught a bit on the way out as she continued. "But you know, I have a boyfriend."

"Dean," Harry said. Harry couldn't ever remember having said the other Gryffindor boy's name with such weight.

"Dean," Ginny confirmed. "He's been really great, even though it only really just started a few weeks ago. And I don't want to do anything that'd betray him because he's been so great. That'd be pretty nasty of me, wouldn't you say? And not to mention you. You're friends."

"Yeah," Harry said, deflating, completely missing the playful undertone in Ginny's voice. "Yeah, you're right."

"So unless I'm writing a letter to him, letting him down easy and telling him that I think he's a great friend but that I'm interested in someone else and don't want to hurt him, I think maybe we should suspend this conversation."

"Yeah, unless – wait, what?"

Ginny grinned. "I've already got most of the wording plotted out. Just need to write it down."

"You – you're a devil," Harry said. She was twisting at the handle of her broom in a way that made Harry's innards lurch.

"But I'm the best kind of devil," she said, and playfully punched him in the arm.

The punch had been meant entirely in jest. Harry had been sure of that when he'd seen it coming, let it land, figuring maybe it'd give him an excuse to retaliate in some fashion that'd allow him to touch her a little. When it did land, the first indication that something was wrong was a slight popping noise. The second indication, as he looked down at his shoulder, the source of the popping sound, was a wave of sudden, completely unexpected, intense pain. The third was the sight of his arm, which now clearly hung out of its socket.

"Ohmigod," Ginny said, recoiling and covering her mouth with her hand. "Harry! Harry, are you okay?"

Harry grunted. "Fine," he said through clenched teeth. He managed a smile for Ginny. "That's a hell of a hook you've got."

Ginny's brow wrinkled and she looked ready to cry. "I didn't mean to hurt you!" she said.

"I know," Harry said. "It was an accident. Guess you don't know your own strength? Come on, let's head back to the Burrow. I'm sure your mum can fix this in a second."

The two resumed their walk, Harry gingerly nursing his dislocated shoulder, Ginny following near at his side, looking hurt and scared for all the reassuring Harry could muster. _Great,_ he thought. _Things start going right and this happens. I'll have to remember to ask Hermione to check again and see if I'm actually cursed or something._

They were intercepted midway to the Burrow by the sudden Apparation of several figures. Dumbledore, Bill, and Fleur, along with four people Harry had never seen before, appeared suddenly before them.

"It's all quite overwhelming," the man Harry didn't recognize was saying. "I'd heard rumors and hearsay, but to think that all of the incidents were tied to the actions of one man, it's a big mind boggling."

"We take great steps to insulate ourselves from the muggle community," Dumbledore said. Seeing a look of confusion on the four strangers' faces, Dumbledore bowed. "I apologize - "muggle" is our word for humans who are not wizards. Ah, Harry!" Dumbledore said, turning to regard Harry and Ginny. "I was hoping to introduce you to these fine people, who have an interest in hearing your story. But what's happened to your arm?"

"Accident, professor," Harry said. Ginny gave a slight, barely audible whimper. _What's it going to take to get her to realize I don't mind? _"Just a light tap on the shoulder and now it's dislocated. I think I'm getting soft in my old age."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Yes, you are getting on in years, now that you mention it," he said. "A light tap on the shoulder from Ms. Weasley here?" Harry nodded. A look passed between the blonde and the brunette. "Well, she seems rather mortified. Tell me, was your life in danger?"

Ginny turned even redder. Harry turned to answer her rather than Dumbledore. "No," he said. "She didn't mean to hurt me. Honestly, it's not even that bad. I _don't mind_."

A small smile broke through Ginny's worried look. _Thank you, professor,_ Harry heard himself think. "Allow me to lend a helping hand," Dumbledore offered, withdrawing his wand and waving it once. Instantly Harry's shoulder reset itself, painlessly. He rubbed at the shoulder. "Better?" Dumbledore asked, to which Harry nodded. "Excellent. Then if you don't mind I'd like to move on to the matter at hand.

"Harry, Ginny, I'd like you to make the acquaintance of Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, Kennedy Limon, and Rupert Giles. We've discussing an – alliance, of sorts, and they were interested in meeting you."

"Pleased to meet you all," Harry said, giving a slight bow. _Wonder which one's which_, he thought. _At least 'Rupert Giles' should be pretty easy to pick out of the bunch_.

"Mum will almost certainly have dinner out by now," Bill said, looking at the sky. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind the extra guests, if you're hungry."

"No thanks," the blonde woman replied. "At least not for me. I'm still getting used to that wooshy teleportation thing. I feel like my stomach's been used as a basketball court."

_Americans_, Harry thought. He shared a quick, inquisitive look with Ginny, who gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shrug.

"I could use some tea," the man, Rupert Giles, said, removing his glasses and wiping them with a handkerchief.

"Plenty of tea," Bill said, taking Fleur's hand as they walked back toward the Burrow.

The brunette woman approached Ginny. "So, you popped out his shoulder with a friendly tap, huh?"

"Professor?" Harry asked. Dumbledore turned to regard him as they walked. "What's been happening in America? I talked with Professor Lupin and he told me about the AWA, but we haven't heard anything else since."

"It's a complicated matter," Dumbledore said. "The reality is that several things happened in America over the past forty-eight hours, some of which we're only just beginning to understand. I'm calling a meeting of the Order at our new headquarters later tonight. I think you should be there."

"Really?" Harry asked.

"Really," Dumbledore said. "Harry, this war is only just begun to grow ugly. I believe it's time we started facing some harsh realities, not the smallest of which is that you are indelibly linked to the struggle with Voldemort. Perhaps if we had been more inclusive of you and your friends during the past year, your impulsive raid on the Department of Mysteries would never have occurred.

_And Sirius would still be alive_. The words seemed to hang in the air. Dumbledore's gaze was sharp. No doubt he could guess what was going on in Harry's mind; he wanted to see the reaction. As dearly as Harry wished to enclose himself in the shell of misery he'd retreated into the few times he'd let himself think about his godfather's death, he knew that doing so would probably damn his chances of being included in the Order's proceedings. _He's testing me_, Harry realized. "You may be right," Harry said, forcing the words out. "We'll never know now how things may have gone differently. We can only look forward to the future and try and make things go right now."

Dumbledore nodded, clearly pleased with the words if not the strained delivery. The back of Harry's mind was screaming, _whatever I have to do make things right!_

As they drew level with the Burrow, Harry felt his hair stand suddenly on end. Whatever it was, Dumbledore and the others clearly felt it too. Dumbledore looked down at his arm and then up at the sky. Harry followed his gaze. The electric blue force field he'd passed through seemed to be crackling. Dumbledore's gaze passed quickly was from quizzical to alarmed to stern and commanding. "The wards are coming down," he said. "We need to get everyone out of here. The Burrow is under attack."

Dumbledore turned to the Burrow and planted his wand against his throat. "_Sonorus_," he muttered. "To all the Weasleys, this is Professor Dumbledore. The Burrow is under attack. We need to evacuate everyone to the Order's old headquarters."

"Guess we're throwing subtlety out the window," Bill muttered, drawing his wand. Fleur, Ginny, and Harry all did the same. Several figures came rushing out of the Weasley house – Molly, followed by a still-tired-looking Arthur, as well as Fred, George, Charlie, Lupin and Tonks. All had their wands drawn.

"What is it, Albus?" Molly asked. Before the last syllable had escaped her lips a jet of fire hit the Burrow head-on, blowing the top three floors clean off.

Five men in dark robes and metal skull masks on brooms jetted over the house. One of them pointed down at Harry. "Potter's here!" he yelled. One of the others broke off, rising to a safer height, rolling up his sleeves to expose his Dark Mark and pressing it tightly.

The remaining four Death Eaters began launching curses at the assembled wizards on the ground. Dumbledore muttered a few words and a shield formed over them, reflecting several of the Death Eaters' spells back at them. Dumbledore turned to Mr. Weasley. "Is everyone out of the house?" he asked.

"Yes," Arthur said. "No one left inside."

"Then I think we should make a strategic retreat, before Voldemort arrives with reinforcements," Dumbledore said. "We're too exposed here to mount a defense against the kind of force he could bring to bear in a short time."

Mrs Weasley nodded, but even as they all pooled their hands, Dumbledore's Shield Charm beginning to fail over them, she whispered, tears filling her eyes, "Our home..."

The last sight Harry had before he was whisked away by the mass Apparition was of the Burrow exploding.

* * *

So, no Circle section and Craig section this chapter. I think Craig's appearance explains the absence of something from his perspective, and we can chalk the Circle's absence up to them not being up to anything particularly interesting at the time this stuff is going down. I'm not totally satisfied with the structure of the story still – like I said, I'm thinking about separating each POV section (you know, Harry's section, Buffy's section, etc) into separate chapters going forward. I'm also toying with the idea of keeping the longform chapters but narrating from more points of view – getting input from Faye, Ginny, Allison, Stiles, Ron, Faith, Giles, Wesley, etc. If you have any opinion at all let me know through the reviews. Thanks for reading.


	4. Part One, Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Harry sat, staring blankly at the wall of the room he'd deposited himself in at 12 Grimmauld Place. A dim part of his mind that didn't really care what it was doing was telling him that Dumbledore had mentioned _new_ headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, which meant that this house – his now-dead godfather's house – wasn't the headquarters for the Order anymore, that they were probably going to be bound for somewhere else soon. There were also eighteen cracks in the wall. His eyes roamed languorously for a nineteenth. Soon he'd forget the number and start over. It'd been like that for an hour.

There was a slight creak at his door but Harry didn't look up. "Harry," Ginny said, walking over to sit next to him on the bed. "Everyone's okay. A few scrapes and bruises and minor burns, but we all got out, even the owls."

Harry said nothing, continuing to stare at the wall.

"Harry?" Ginny asked. "Harry, what's wrong?"

"It's my fault," Harry said, no inflection in his voice at all. _I wonder how many cracks there are in the wall_. "If it weren't for me they'd never have targeted the Burrow."

"You heard the Death Eaters!" Ginny said, grabbing hold of Harry's arm and trying to wrench his gaze from the wall, gently. It didn't work. He kept staring. "They didn't know you were there."

"Your family would be nothing in this war if it weren't for the fact that you're my friends," Harry said. "Yeah, okay, they didn't know I was at the Burrow. But they were targeting the Burrow because they knew it'd hurt me."

"Harry, you don't know that."

"Don't I?" he asked. He was starting to shake all over. "I'm the one who sees into _his_ head, aren't I? I know how he thinks."

"I do, too," Ginny whispered. "Remember that? Tom's perfectly willing to torture people just for the sake of torturing them."

"You're wrong about that," Harry said. Ginny started. "He only uses torture because he's good at it and it gets the fastest results for what he wants. It's not that he enjoys it – he enjoys what it gets for him."

"And what about this?" Ginny asked. "What's this get for him?"

"I don't know," Harry said. All inflection was gone from his voice again. "I don't care. I'm through watching everyone else suffer for me. I'm just through, okay? I guess I just wish I'd never been born, you know, or something."

Ginny screamed.

Harry was shaken instantly out of his reverie. Ginny had shot up off the bed and was standing, her hands pushed into her face, every visible inch of her skin a deep red. "Ginny, what - ?" Harry started to ask, but she cut him off.

"_Don't you dare!_" she sobbed, tears streaming freely down her cheeks and onto her hands. "Don't _let him_ do this to you! Don't blame yourself! _Blame him!_ For the love of everything, Harry, this is what he wants! You said it yourself. He wants something out of everything he does. Out of this, he wants to hurt you. Wants you to feel despair. _And you're letting him!_"

Harry crossed the space between them instantly and wrapped his arms around her. The other members of the Order, and the Weasleys, were attracted by Ginny's scream, but they stopped at the door when they saw Harry holding her, her shoulders shaking slightly. Harry lowered his head, tears beginning to run down his own face, and rested his head against hers, the soft billow of her hair wispy against his face. The observers, many of them wiping tears away themselves, slowly dispersed, with Dumbledore shutting the door.

After a few minutes Ginny pulled back far enough to look Harry in the eyes. "Promise me," she said.

"Promise you what?" Harry asked, his arms still wound around her back.

"Promise me you'll never say or think that again," she said. She wiped at a tear on her cheek and shook her head, trying to clear out the cobwebs. "We need you. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not even okay, not for you. But we need you. So promise me."

Harry's heart was starting to pick up speed. _Her face is so close_. "I promise," he said. She smiled, went to wipe another tear off her face, but he beat her to it, tracing his finger across her skin lightly and wiping the single drop away. It lingered on top of his finger for a second, then ran down the side, diffusing into his skin and disappearing. Her own hand, moving up to wipe it away, instead came to rest gently against Harry's hand, pressing it lightly into her face. "In case you haven't noticed, I can be a bit thick sometimes," Harry continued, laughing very lightly. "Help me keep that promise?"

Ginny nodded, letting the hand covering Harry's slip around and inside its grasp. She squeezed, making sure not to use too much pressure. "_I_ promise," she said.

_Her face is still so close._

"So, uh," Harry said, after the moment stretched just a little too far. "I guess we should go downstairs. Find out what's happening." He pulled his hand away from Ginny's face, moved the other arm which had stayed wrapped above her waist, and stepped back.

Ginny stepped back as well and brushed her hair into back into place. "Yeah, you're right," she said. "Didn't Dumbledore mention something about a new headquarters?"

"Yeah, I remember that too."

Downstairs, Harry and Ginny were met with quite an assemblage – Dumbledore, the four people he'd been with earlier, and the Weasleys had been joined by Kingsley Shacklebolt, Tonks, Remus Lupin, Mad-Eye Moody, and Professors Snape and McGonagall. "Ah, Harry, Ginny," Dumbledore said, his signature twinkle firmly fixed back in his eye. "We were just getting ready to get started."

"Actually, we've been waiting the last ten minutes for you," Ron muttered, looking between Harry and Ginny with a clouded expression as the two took the remaining seats at the long kitchen table. "What was up with all that?"

Harry and Ginny both blushed. "Later," Harry said. _I haven't got even the faintest idea what I'm going to say to him. I'm not even completely certain of what's going on. Ugh. Shelve it. Other things at hand_. Louder, and at Dumbledore, Harry spoke again. "I thought you said the Order was getting a new headquarters, Professor?"

"Quite right, Harry," Dumbledore replied. "But since that headquarters is on the grounds of Hogwarts and cannot be Apparated to directly, I deemed it prudent we come here in evacuating the Burrow. This location is still completely unknown to Voldemort's forces and we could come directly."

"What's going on with this upheval, Headmaster?" Tonks asked. "We've been hearing some pretty fetched rumours out there."

"No doubt it will be some time before we understand the full magnitude of recent events," Dumbledore said. "But our guests here have confirmed at least part of the equation we were missing. They closed a Hellmouth."

There were two reactions from around the table – shocked gasps from Lupin, Snape, Tonks, Shacklebolt, and Moody, and confused glances from the rest. "A what?" Ron asked.

"Perhaps you would like to explain, Mr. Giles?" Dumbledore said, turning to the man Harry remembered as Rupert Giles from earlier introductions.

"Certainly," Giles said. "This particular Hellmouth was an area where the boundary between our dimension and the various hell dimensions as particularly weak, causing demonic energy to cross over frequently, saturating the area and making it a kind of hotspot for demons and vampires."

"It's what's beyond Dark magic," Lupin put in. "Voldemort and his followers channel, and are corrupted by, power like this, but the things that lived in the Hellmouth were made purely of that power." He turned to face Giles and the three women. "I've never heard of one being closed before. You had something to do with this, didn't you?"  
"Something," the blonde woman said, looking put out by the admiring looks she and others were getting from the senior members of the Order. Even Snape looked impressed. "You know, a little medallion here, a little vampire dusting there – you could say we were part of the solution."

The brunette rolled her eyes. "We closed it," she said. "We're the Slayers."

This time there was a greater number of confused looks. "Slayers?" Ron asked. "Sorry, I'm feeling like I forgot to study or something here."

"Yeah, because that'd _never_ happen, would it Ron?" Fred asked.

"You're on the straight-and-narrow where your studies are concerned," George said.

"The family brain," the two concluded, their mother shooting them poisonous looks and shushing them.

"It's quite all right, Ron," Lupin said, eying the three women with a new level of wariness. "Not many in Britain know of the Slayer. It's been generations since one's even been here – the Slayer is a girl who is given special abilities, speed, strength, the like, to fight and kill vampires. But forgive me, ladies – I thought there was only one Slayer. You used the plural."

"Used to be only one," the blonde replied. "Namely me. Now there's bunches. That was our doing."

"This is the primary reason for our meeting," Dumbledore said. "Ms. Summers here has become the leader of an army of sorts of newly-activated Slayers. Recently they cast a spell – a rather large and complicated bit of magic, as I understand it – which bestowed the Slayer's abilities upon every girl in the world with the potential to be the Slayer. In the wake of this action they would like to locate all of the girls who were not already gathered to them, educate them about what they have become, and offer them a safe place to learn to use their abilities.

"They wish to use Hogwarts' resources to find, instruct, and re-deploy an army of Slayers."

This pronouncement was met with silence. _Well, didn't see this coming,_ Harry thought.

"Sounds useful," Mad-Eye said, breaking the silence with his gruff and abrupt statement. "I met a Slayer and her Watcher once when I was on assignment in Jamaica about thirty years or so ago. Never held with the prejudice against you lot here in the Wizard community. Anyone that committed to stopping evil's doing something right."

"Gotta also think of the logistics of the thing," Charlie Weasley pointed out. "Where are we going to fit a bunch of Slayers?"

"That will not be a problem," Professor McGonagall cut in, her voice as crisp and measured as ever. "Recent additions to the castle and grounds of Hogwarts have included dormitory space for Auror garrisons. It would be quite simple to expand those to accommodate the Slayers, even if there turn out to be a great number of them."

"And we have a place in LA, too," the blonde, Buffy Summers, said. "The biggest problem is going to be finding them."

"What about escalation?" Tonks asked.

"What?" Buffy asked in return.

"Escalation," she said. "We turn up with an army of Slayers, how is Voldemort going to react?"

All faces (even the Americans, who caught up quickly) turned to Snape. He scowled. "My contact with the Dark Lord has been – minimal, of late," he admitted. "My lack of involvement in the recent altercation at the Department of Mysteries has _troubled_ him, although he has not said as much in words."

"How can you tell, then?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"I am a spy," Snape replied, dismissively. "If I could not discern his thoughts and moods from minute detail I would not be able to anticipate them. And I would be dead already."

"Fine, minute detail, minimal contact, what _do_ you know?" Harry asked, abruptly.

Snape's entire face seemed to slither into a look of utter malice. "I do not remember Mr. Potter being inducted into the Order," he said, curtly, directing his words at Dumbledore. "I for one do not appreciate the inclusion of these – children – in this meeting. Their rash actions – which resulted in the death of a senior member of this Order – have proven that they lack the maturity to participate in these proceedings."

Harry's blood hit boiling instantly. "Don't you dare talk about Sirius!" Harry said, standing, his chair tumbling backwards. "Especially not like you care! You're probably happy he's dead!"

Ron and Ginny jumped up to restrain Harry from launching himself across the table at Snape, who'd also risen at Harry's aggressive posture. "And yet the fact remains that his death is your fault," he said.

Dumbledore slowly rose to his own feet. "Enough," he said. "Harry, I chose to include you tonight out of a belief that you were ready for such involvement. Do not prove me wrong at the first opportunity."

Harry finally let his muscles relax and stopped fighting. Curiously, it was Ginny's grip that had really restrained him; he could tell that it'd have been easy enough for him to throw Ron off completely. "Yes, Professor," he said to Dumbledore, reaching down, standing his chair back up, and then sitting, looking anywhere but at Snape.

"And Severus," Dumbledore said, turning his attention on the Order's Death Eater spy. "Please do try not to bait Harry like you did with Sirius. I expect restraint out of both of you; and I expect that I will not have to remind you of that again."

"Yes, Headmaster," Snape said, bowing his head slightly, but casting one last grimace at Harry as he sat down, which Harry pointedly ignored.

Dumbledore cast one last glance of his own at Snape and Harry, then lowered himself back into his seat. "While we believe that the magical upheaval that caused the protection around Privet Drive and the Burrow to weaken and disappear has ended, we are still running tests," Dumbledore said. "We want to be sure that it's over before moving on to the new headquarters. I have been in communication with Hagrid and Professor Flitwick at Hogwarts; they've confirmed that the school's protective wards are intact and haven't been disturbed. However, it seemed that the Burrow's wards were intact as well until the – occurrence – earlier, and we would prefer not to take any additional risks. Minerva, Severus, Kingsley, Alastor and I will return to Hogwarts tonight to make sure that the school's protection is indeed okay, and we will call on the rest of you shortly thereafter.

"Unless anyone has any additional business," Dumbledore said, glancing around the table. "I will call this meeting adjourned."

Everyone stood, moving in several directions at once. The Weasleys, who'd been sitting together, wound up backing almost as one into a corner, talking amongst each other. Still feeling guilty (and still feeling the heat and pressure of Ginny's body against his own as she'd made him promise not to give in to despair – Harry quickly reminded himself that that was the stronger memory and couldn't help but blush again) Harry walked over to them.

"Don't know," Mr. Weasley was saying. "I'm assuming Dumbledore means to put us up at Hogwarts for the time being, but that can't be permanent."

"We'd offer you space at our place, but the flat's just not that big," Bill said, looking embarassed. "Maybe a couple of you."

"We'd have been moving out soon anyway," George said, Fred nodding. "We can move into the offices over the shop. It'll be a touch cramped but it'll only be temporary anyway."

"Stop," Harry said. All nine Weasleys stopped talking at once and looked at him. "Look, I – I feel responsible for what happened to the Burrow."

"Harry, dear - " Mrs. Weasley started, as Ginny began to look daggers at Harry.

"Let me finish, please," he said, more at Ginny than at her mother. She backed down about half an inch. "I know you wouldn't blame me."

"Yeah, we're more likely to blame the gits who actually blew the place up," Fred said.

"We're funny that way," George added, although neither statement was made with a trace of mirth.

"I know you wouldn't blame me," Harry repeated, shooting a look half annoyed, half fond at the twins. "But there it is. Anyway, I think I have a solution that works out to the best for everyone. I want you to have Grimmauld Place."

The words took a moment to sink in. "All this?" Mrs Weasley asked. "This house is a mansion!"

"Just about," Harry agreed, looking around. "And I don't want it."

"Harry, let's not be hasty," Mr. Weasley said. He looked pained. "This house is your – er, inheritance, from Sirius. It should be yours."

"Sirius never wanted this place," Harry said. "Too many bad memories. Now I rather feel the same. But you – you can turn this place into a home. And since your home is gone – no matter whose fault that is – and since I can give this to you – since, as you pointed out, it's mine – and since I don't have any desire or need for it – I think it should be yours."

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked at each other for a moment, and then, an unspoken communication having passed between them, Mrs. Weasley rounded on Harry and swept him into a teary hug. "Oh, thank you, Harry," she said.

A moment later, all eight of the other Weasleys hit him too, a giant group hug with Harry at its center. _Even now life can be okay_, he thought. _Maybe that promise won't be so hard to keep after all_.

* * *

Buffy, Giles, Kennedy, and Willow sat in the parlor at Grimmauld Place. The room had been decked out for physical training – mostly just pads on the floor and walls, but there were a few weapons as well, including – Buffy smiled – a mambele, an ax with three straight edges and one curved, a weapon which she'd used once in LA years before. She walked over to the wall and picked the mambele up off of it, testing its weight. _Heavier than I remember_, she thought. _It's even heavier than the Scythe_.

She'd left the ancient Slayer's weapon with Faith, believing it'd be a bit conspicuous to carry around Britain. _And maybe a little intimidating, too_. _Besides, it's as much Faith's as it is mine_. Buffy snorted to herself. _Maybe if I repeat that a few dozen more times I'll really start believing it._

"What do you think of them?" Kennedy asked, lounging back in a comfortable chair offset from the main floor of the parlor.

"I think they're on the level," Buffy said. "Still not sure I want to go charging into their war."

"Hear you there," Willow muttered.

"I hate to come across as the uptight, curmudgeonly Brit here," Giles began.

"Come on, you know you _love_ coming across that way," Willow said, grinning, for a second the same little girl who'd spent many a night researching with Giles and Xander in the Sunnydale High library. Buffy grimaced. Those brief glimpses of the happy people her friends used to be were sometimes the worst.

"Yes, well, seeing as we're actually in Britain right now I find it rather off-putting," Giles replied. "Anyway, as I was saying – I believe their cause is a good one. Despite our past differences they deserve our help. In a word, this is what we do."

"Yeah, and taking vacations isn't what we do," Buffy said. "I know. But I'm still not sure this war is what's best for us right now. The girls are only just getting used to the idea, let alone the reality, of actually being Slayers. Not only that but since they're the experienced ones we're going to be relying pretty heavily on them to find and train the others. That alone is a lot of pressure – do you think we can handle all that _and_ join this war of theirs?"

"I don't know that it's really a choice, Buffy," Giles said.

"We make such a big deal about choosing to become Slayers instead of being chosen," Kennedy said. "And here we are back to being chosen, already. That took long."

"Name of the game, rookie," Buffy said. "Lots of back and forth. You're the one with the power, they're the ones with the power. They're the ones who are dead, you're the one whose dead. They come back to life, you come back to life. It's tough."

The door to the parlor slid open and a head with a great deal of red hair stuck in. "Oh, sorry," the youngest Weasley – Buffy couldn't remember her first name - "I figured no one would be in here. I'll leave you be."

"No, come in, Ginny," Kennedy said, rising to a more upright position in the chair. "We actually wanted to talk to you."

_Ginny. Gotta remember that. She's probably our first_.

The girl took a couple of slightly hesitant steps into the parlor. "You wanted to speak with me?" she asked. "Why?"

"It's about that pop on the shoulder you gave your boyfriend back there," Kennedy said.

Ginny instantly colored. "He's not my boyfriend," she said, looking at the floor.

"It's kind of adorable that you think that's the important part," Kennedy replied. "But I think you might be wrong about that. Anyway, it's not what we're interested in."

Ginny looked up at Kennedy. "What are you interested in, then?"

"It takes a lot of strength to pop someone's shoulder without even meaning to. The kind of strength we have."

That took a second to sink in. Ginny shook her head. "No, I couldn't possibly - "

"You're the right age," Buffy said, speaking directly to Ginny for the first time. "Probably right around how old I was when I was first chosen. You're strong, fast, athletic. You notice your surroundings instead of just being around them. And I bet you're having the dreams, too."

"Dreams?" Ginny asked, the color draining from her face. The question didn't appear to be directed at anyone in particular.

"Dreams of past Slayers," Giles threw in. "Also prophecy dreams, although those aren't as common."

Ginny was stark white. The combination of colorless skin and brilliant red hair made her look rather like a strawberry sundae, in Buffy's opinion. _Or bloody marble_. "You have been having the dreams, haven't you?"

"Yes," Ginny whispered. "Yes, for a while now. I figured they were just nightmares, you know? Sort of random, but all the mayhem was there, so I just chalked it up to some kind of subconscious thing."

"And the last few days you've been feeling - ?"

"Stronger," Ginny admitted. She looked Buffy right in the eye. "Faster."

"Well, that about clinches it," Buffy said, walking to stand in front of the half-petrified, half-wondrous young woman. "You're a Slayer, Ginny Weasley. Welcome to the team."

"I'm a Slayer," Ginny said, testing the words in her mouth. "I – I'm not completely certain what that means."

The four beside Ginny all exchanged looks. _Preview of what's to come?_ Buffy thought. _They're all going to have that same question_. "Once upon a time, it meant that you were the only girl in the world with the power to fight vampires," Buffy explained. "Now, it means you're one of a whole bunch of girls – maybe a whole lot of girls – with the power to fight vampires."  
"Plus, there's this whole sacred responsibility thing, but we're kind of rewriting the book on that as we go," Kennedy said. "Honestly, good a question as that is, this whole brave new world thing we're doing's left us without a lot of concrete answers. We're still figuring it out for ourselves."

"But we want to figure it out together," Buffy said, picking up Kennedy's thread and running with it. "We want to bring all the Slayers in the world together, to learn, and grow, and be more. And I hope that starts with you." Ginny glanced sharply at her. "That's right, you're the first new Slayer we've found. Unless Faith has managed to scare up a couple in LA."

"Faith?" Ginny asked.

"Hoo boy," Willow breathed out.

"We'll explain Faith another day," Buffy said. She grimaced. "Or maybe when we have a spare week. Look, I know this whole thing is a little overwhelming – been there, done that, eventually you get used to it but for now, it'd help not to focus on the whole big thing. Do you want to learn a little bit about being a Slayer?"

"I suppose," Ginny said. "What do you mean?"

Buffy smiled. "Ever sparred before?"

After a moment of explanation, Ginny looked skeptical. "You want me to hit you with my fists?" she asked. "We don't really do that much here."

Kennedy turned to regard Giles. "I didn't think _all_ Brits were pansies."

"No, not here like in Britain," Ginny said, an edge of impatience overtaking her for a moment. _Girl doesn't like to slow down_, Buffy observed. _Or be slowed down. Have to work on that_. "Here, like among wizards. We don't really, you know, _hit_ much."

"Well, as radically as we may be redefining the whole Slayer thing, I think that hitting is probably still going to be a part of the gig," Kennedy said. "Come on, you've never punched anyone before?"

"No," Ginny said. "Never. I've felt like it once or twice and I've seen it done, but anyone who deserves it just got a Bat Bogey Hex in the past."

"Bat Bogey Hex?" Buffy asked. She looked to Willow, who shrugged.

"You know, makes bats fly out of your nose," Ginny explained.

"But why 'bogey?'"

Giles cleared his throat. "_That_ is a British thing."

The sparring session started slowly. At first, poor Ginny was way off balance, clearly out of her element, and for a moment or two Buffy considered the possibility that they'd jumped the gun. _Pretty strange to find one completely by accident_, she reasoned. _Maybe we all just got a little excited and read too much into a strong girl with nightmares._

Then Buffy told Ginny to close her eyes and let herself relax into it. Soon, her posture loosened, she stopped telegraphing all her punches, and she managed to start parrying the light jabs and thrusts Kennedy threw at her. With a nod, Buffy signaled Kennedy to pick up the pace. After a moment of more intense punches and kicks, Kennedy went for a leg sweep that, to her slight surprise, Ginny manged to jump. Not letting it get the best of her, Kennedy let the momentum of the leg sweep carry her around into a heel kick which connected with Ginny's ribcage, rattling her and sending her to the floor.

"Are you okay?" Kennedy asked, instantly concerned.

Ginny rubbed at the spot on her ribs and smiled. "That was excellent," she said. "Can you teach me that?"

Kennedy nodded. "That and more," she said, offering a hand to pull Ginny from the floor. "There's a lot of hard work that goes into being a Slayer. Super powers only take you so far."

Ginny nodded in return, accepting the offered hand and letting Kennedy pull her to her feet. "I think I want to do that work," she said. "I want to find out, like you said, Buffy. I want to know."

Buffy grinned. "Don't suppose I can ask all the recruitment to go this well."

* * *

Scott awoke, hours after he and Allison had fallen asleep together, still laying on the cot in the ruined Hale house. Derek was there; it was clear to Scott immediately that Derek had caused him to awaken, but Scott couldn't remember hearing or feeling anything. He looked up at the new Alpha, who was staring placidly back at him. _Can he just will me to wake up?_ Scott wondered. _At some point someone's gotta write down a guidebook to all this._

"I'm heading out," Derek said. "Wanted to make sure you and Allison knew I wouldn't be around if we have any unpleasant visitors. Madison has something she said she needed to take care of, so I'm going to keep an eye on Lydia."

"I'll go, we agreed you were too conspicuous," Scott said, trying to rise and sinking back onto the bed immediately as the entire room spun.

"You're not going to be able to even get out of that bed until tomorrow at the earliest," Derek said. "It's all right, I'll keep a low profile."

"Derek, you don't know what a low profile is," Scott said. "I think you were born without the gene."

The side of Derek's mouth twitched. "You haven't seen every side of me yet, Scott," he said. "Make sure to rest up."

He was gone.

Scott looked down to see if they'd woken Allison. Her breathing was still even. Scott began to settle back. "Was Derek just hitting on you?" Allison asked.

Scott sighed. "I don't think so," he said. "Then again, I can never tell what's going on in that guy's head, so who knows. Maybe that'll be another great werewolf thing. 'Hey, Scott, not only do you transform into a hairy, clawed monster and go crazy at the full moon, you're now obligated to be gay!' That'd be my luck."

Allison laughed, turned over so that she was facing Scott on the bed. "You have something against being gay?" she asked.

"No," Scott said, quickly. "No, I don't have anything against gay people. Or people being gay. Or whatever. It's just, you know, I'm not."

Allison raised an eyebrow and cast a pointed glance down towards where their pelvic areas were touching. "I think I can tell." Scott instantly blushed. "No, don't get embarrassed," Allison said, starting to laugh. "It's good. Means your muscles are working properly."

Scott managed to lift an arm to rub the bridge of his nose. "You're making fun of me."

Allison giggled again and whispered, "I think the word you're looking for there is actually 'teasing.'"

"Yeah, that one."

She smiled and kissed his forehead. "Remember, it's a tease for me, too," Allison pointed out. She sat up slightly on the bed. "I don't suppose you need to be fully mobile for me to have my fun with you, but that'd be taking advantage."

"You're a little scary sometimes," Scott said.

"Come on, I'm not serious," Allison said, reclining back down to eye level.

"I know," Scott said. He wanted to add something else but couldn't think of anything and the silence stretched into discomfort.

"Scott, about earlier. When I first showed up."

_I'd really been hoping she wouldn't bring that up_. "Yeah," he said. "About that."

"What happened?" Allison asked, all trace of smile and laughter gone. "I mean, did I just frighten you or what?"

"Maybe," Scott said. He could tell from the look in her eyes that that wasn't nearly good enough. "I don't know, Allison. Just, the second you started toward me I felt like – like I needed to get away." He bowed his head, not wanting to look into her eyes as he said it. "I don't know why. It's not what _I_ wanted. I wanted you here with me, like this, because this is what feels right. It's the only thing right now that feels right."

She brought a hand to his face, tilted it up towards her own. "Maybe it's a wolf thing," she said, clearly trying to put conviction behind it.

"Maybe," Scott said. "Probably. But I don't know what it means, or why it happened."  
"Maybe we just put it behind us, then," Allison said.

"Yeah," Scott said. "That's probably best. Neither of us really knows what the whole werewolf thing means for our relationship. We just need to take it a step at a time."

"Right," Allison said. Her eyes were teary. "A step at a time."

"Hey, don't cry," Scott said, trying to move his arms around her to comfort her. The effort felt like it cost him several years of his life, but eventually he got his arms arrayed around her shoulders. "We're going to get through this together. I love you, remember?"

"Of course I remember," she whispered back. "I love you too."

They held each other until they drifted back to sleep.

* * *

Dean was sitting on his bed in their motel room; Sam was pacing. _He looks so calm_, Sam thought. _How does he always do that? Well, I guess it wasn't his – _the thought stopped. He wasn't even sure what to think of Madison as. The first thought was 'girlfriend' but upon further consideration he decided that a girl he'd slept with once and known less than a week probably didn't qualify, however he'd felt about her. _Lover?_ Sam though. _Ugh. Sounds so Victorian_.

"You want to sit down before you wear a hole in the floor?" Dean asked.

"I can't just sit around," Sam said.

"'Cause what you're doing right now is helping," Dean said, reclining.

"I just – damn it, I need to know what's happening."

"Well, let's look at the facts," Dean said.

"Madison is alive," Sam said. The words felt completely wrong coming from his mouth.

Dean frowned. "Yeah," he said. "You're sure you - ?"

Sam turned to Dean, frowning as well. "Of course I'm sure. How many things have I killed with that gun? I shot her in the heart, Dean. No way I could have missed, and even if I didn't hit the heart directly – which I did – there's no way I could have missed by enough to leave her alive. No way."

"Okay, okay," Dean said, raising his hands and trying to calm his brother down. "I'm just saying, you were more than a little broken up about the whole thing. That can play tricks on you."

"No tricks," Sam said. "I shot her in the heart. Checked her pulse – she was gone."

"So, she came back," Dean continued, hypothesizing. "Or she healed."

"Her heart could have stopped temporarily while her body began to repair the damage," Sam said. "I've read about cases where people have been legally dead for over a minute while their bodies have begun to fix whatever the problem was in the first place."

"And those were normal people, I'm betting," Dean said. "Madison's a werewolf. Throw that into the mix and who knows how much she could heal from. Or how quickly. For all we know she was still stone cold by the time we hit the state line."

"So, what, shoot them in the heart and they don't die?" Sam asked.

"Actually, shoot us like normal people at all and we don't die."

Neither brother had heard the door open. Both whirled, drawing their guns and pointing them at the female figure that stood in their doorway. Madison raised her hands. "I surrender," she said.

"Geez," Dean muttered. "Ever try knocking?"

Sam didn't respond. He closed the distance between them slowly, until he was standing right in front of her. She wore an expression that seemed half-bemused, half-sad. "Madison?" Sam asked.

"It's me, Sam," she said, reaching out to brush a hand across his chest. "In the flesh."

Sam stood there for a moment and let the sensation of her hand making contact with his chest rush through him. "How? I shot you."

She retracted the hand and smiled, although it didn't look like a happy smile. "I overheard a bit of your conversation," she said. "You pretty much got it right. I woke up about a day after you left. Wasn't sure what the hell happened. Was pretty confused for the first few minutes – what's my name, where am I, all sorts of things. Then it started coming back to me. Thought about trying to kill myself for a while but scrapped the idea – you couldn't manage to kill me, kinda doubt I'd manage to kill me. So I figured I'd try to find you."

"Why us?" Dean asked.

She gave Sam a significant glance that lasted just long enough for Dean to roll his eyes. "You guys were the only people I'd ever met who seemed to know anything about this," she said. "Not everything, apparently, but something. And after I killed those people I couldn't just stay in my job and all that. It helps to have a goal in life, so, short-term, my goal was to find you. Finally tracked you to this little bar that just got rebuilt and they told me to find you here."

"Guess that girl who showed up at the Roadhouse wasn't one of your admirers after all," Sam said.

"Not so much, no," Madison said, although she was staring very heavily at Sam as she said it.

Dean cleared his throat. "I guess maybe I should go out and check on the car," he said. "You know, make sure it still has wheels and stuff."

When neither his brother or the werewolf girl responded, except to nod distractedly, Dean pushed off of his bed, muttering to himself, and exited the motel room.

As soon as he was gone, Sam tried to speak. "Madison, I - "

He didn't finish the sentence. Madison had flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him into a very deep kiss. Almost involuntarily Sam's arms snaked around behind Madison and pulled her closer, pressing her body against his. Coherent thought left Sam and for a few minutes all there was in the world were their bodies pressed tightly against each other and their lips and tongues and skin, a world of heat and pressure and nothing bad or terrible.

When finally she pulled back, she licked her lips. "Knew I was looking for you for a reason," she said, lightly.

"Look, Madison," Sam said, disentangling himself from her. "I – how are you even okay being around me? I shot you. I meant to kill you."

"Yeah, and as I remember it, I asked you to," she said. "I think we were both a little on edge."

"Madison - " Sam began, trying not to sound like he was whining. _There are just too many questions._

"No, Sam, stop," she said, placing a hand firmly on his chest again. "First of all, there's a limit to just how sensitive you can be about these things. It's really not a big deal from my perspective. Given everything I've talked about with Derek I think we both overreacted."

"Overreacted?" Sam asked. "I – did you ever stop to think maybe I – you know, cared about you? That I haven't even started to deal with it yet? That it's taken a ton of effort just to get out of bed in the morning since it happened?"

"Oh, Sam, you're missing my point completely," she said. "I appreciate how seriously you took the whole thing. But we didn't need to. I'm okay, you didn't even really hurt me because the gunshot knocked me out and by the time I woke up I'd healed completely, and now – now I'm better than okay. Now I have a pack."

"And that's a good thing?" Sam asked, an eyebrow quirking.

"The best thing, apparently," Madison said. "We – werewolves, I mean – don't have to be completely wild. It can be controlled. And packs help with that control. Derek and the younger one, Scott – and the one in the hospital, Lydia, she's turning right now – the four of us can help each other to beat this thing. We can still be _people_, even if we're wolves, too. And we can be – well, whatever we were becoming."

Sam sighed. "I don't know, Madison."

She looked instantly hurt. "But I thought - "

"Oh, I felt something," Sam reassured her. "Definitely. But – but up until a little while ago I thought you were dead. It's a lot to take in."

"Yeah," Madison said. "Yeah, I guess I can see that. And we wouldn't want to make any more hasty decisions. Last time we did that you shot me."

"Yeah, I guess that was a mistake."

"So, no more hasty decisions? Consider everything fully before committing to anything?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"The last time we had a conversation like this we wound up having sex," Madison said. "If I remember correctly, like, right after. Or kind of during."

"Uh," Sam said. "Well, if you want to have sex now, I guess."

To his surprise, Madison nodded. "Oh, I want to have sex now," she said. "I don't know if it's a wolf thing or what but my libido has been _crazy_ ever since I started tracking you. I had to fight down the urge to bone every idiot little boy I ran into on the way here. Hell, even your brother was looking appealing a minute ago."

"He's _so_ going to resent that remark tomorrow," Sam asid.

"Question is, is he going to resent having to sleep in the car tomorrow?" Madison asked.

Sam brushed by her, locked the door, and quirked an eyebrow at her.

With a wink, she turned and, exaggerating her unusual slight swagger, walked over to the bed Sam had claimed as his. Sam followed her. "How could you tell that was my bed?" he asked.

"I can smell the difference," Madison said. She whirled to face him. "Enhanced senses. I'm starting to get in touch with the ones I can use when I'm still like this. It includes enhanced tactile senses. In other words," she said, unbuttoning her blouse and letting it fall to the floor, "every inch of my skin is extra sensitive."

She advanced on Sam, her eyes glowing yellow, and she picked him up – Sam marveled at the strength – and tossed him onto the bed, climbing on top of him. The next few minutes were devoted to the removal of the rest of their clothes, some of which wound up tattered; the next few hours thereafter were devoted to slightly more pleasant activities.

* * *

A/N: Again, yes, no Craig or Circle sections. I promise that both of them will be showing up again next chapter. And, yes, this chapter was a lot shorter than the first three. Next chapter should help pick up the story's pace a bit. As ever, if you have anything you'd like to let me know about it, send me up a review.


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